Title – “Belt and Road – A Chinese World Order”
Author – Bruno Macaes, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, USA and Renmin Institute, China, Formal Portugal Europe Minister, Commentator, BBC, CNN ,Al jazeera
Place – United Kingdom / India
Publisher – Penguin Random House India Pvt Lt
Publication Date – 2018 UK / 2019 India
Edition – First
Pages – 227
Price – Rs 599/-
ISBN -9780670092307
Book Review by – R S Mehta
“Belt and Road – A Chinese World Order” is a fascinating account of China’s unprecedented economic growth bursting its seams, overstepping its own national boundaries and spilling over the entire globe. In its brief existence of six years, Belt and Road, has metamorphosed twice from Silk Road to OBOR to BRI. However, one thing that remained constant in all its avatars is its propensity to cause controversy.
Having first ignored then dismissed and later seized with the sheer scale, scope, intent and the strong transformational potential of Belt and Road, the non-communist western world suddenly woke to its impact when the sound of Chinese BRI juggernaut rumbling down the continents of Eurasia, Africa & Latin America started shaking the very foundation on which the current world order is resting today.
Caught off guard, the democratic world went into a huddle, forming groups of nations to protect its turf and counter the challenges that Mr Xi’s ambitious world vision posed to the existing order. Thanks to BRI, the world is today compelled to seek re-alignment of forces, making the world look much like it looked at the eve of WW- II and the cold war days.
It goes to the credit of Mr Bruno Macaes, the erstwhile Portuguese ambassador to EEU, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, USA and Renmin Institute, China to foresee, like the fabled Nostradamus, what was to come. He, in his book “Belt and Road – The Chinese World Order”, gave in a remarkable graphic detail, a clear picture well in advance, of what the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was all about and how it was going to impact the course of human history on this planet in the years to come.
Today what we see happening in the world is much in line with what was visualised by the author at the time of scripting this book in 2017-18. Author in the preface itself had mentioned how the existing “world order” was about to undergo an unprecedented change. It also predicted with uncanny precision that India and China were the two key players who were destined to give the new order its final shape in Asia which in turn would shape the new world order.(Preface p.vii-x)
In the above dynamics, Mr Macus was right in predicting that China was to be the main driver of this change and Belt and Road was to become one of its most important instrument to affect that change. “Belt and Road, is the Chinese plan to build a new world order replacing the US led international system.” (p.5). The scope and global extents to which Belt and Road reaches out, clearly indicates that “China is the only country today in the world displaying universal character that is overstepping its boundaries, extending to distant geographies.” This in author’s view, “is a distinctive trait, which till now had been an exclusive feature of America foreign policy”(p.5).
Author in 2017-18 had also speculated that future of mankind would depend significantly on the answer to the question whether the new world order crafted by China was going to be similar to the one established by the western world, or will it be different from it ? All signs and symptoms indicated that it would be significantly different from the earlier one. Today, US and the whole democratic world has taken cognition of these disruptive trends and put their acts together to defend their cherished values and economic interests from this monumental challenge posed by Mr Xi’s plans to built a new universe – called the Belt and Road.
The map of the world in which we live today was drawn by the allied powers in a manner that put western nations and united states at the centre from where political and economic power flowed. However, as the decade passed, author feels that America’s grip over the forces shaping the new world were getting out of its hands and many emerging powers in Asia, “can no longer be seen as pale or as imperfect copies of Western societies”.(P. 2)
The book is organised under five broad chapters. The first chapter discusses the circumstances in which the Belt and Road was conceptualised and formally announced in Khazakistan By President Xi Jinping in 2013. It has been joined since by as many as 138 nations of Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Though this web of ambitious intercontinental projects are spread un-evenly all around the globe, its most pronounced concentration can be seen in Central Asia. The time line for completing all BRI projects spans over 30 years. However, China plans to “realize” most of them “by 2049” coinciding with the centenary of PRC.( P. 10)
Belt and Road Initiative, as the author finds in this book, intends to integrate the Asian continent with that of Europe, Africa and America by restoring the old routes and by improving the communication over land, surmounting formidable natural physical barriers. These communication links primarily comprise of rail, road, energy pipelines, power grids, economic zones, supply chains, warehousing and transit points etc that is expected to gradually re-start the old traditional economic engines of Eurasia and rejuvenate the combined trading potential of Europe and Asia that once occupied the epicentre of world economy. In recorded human history of nearly two to three thousand years, central Asia had always constituted the backbone of world economy. It is also the area where the potential for growth is the highest. The author ; like Halford Mackinder in his “The Geographical Pivot Of History”(1904); feels that “Who ever is able to build and control the infrastructure, linking the two ends of Eurasia will rule the world”.(p.3) The Belt and Road also has a component by which, China envisages creating a Maritime Silk Road connecting Africa and Latin America by sea route and an Arctic Silk Road connecting Asia, Europe and American continents through the now fast melting Arctic northern route cutting down the sailing time around the world drastically.
The second Chapter “Nuts and Bolts” deals with the administration, logistics and financial architecture that fuels, funds and drives the Belt and Road. These mammoth inter-continental projects of unprecedented scale, scope and dimension are expected to consume up to 4 to 8 Trillion Dollars worth finance in the next three decades.(P. 46) Bulk of these finances are coming from China’s own internal banking systems as loans, but some proportion are also coming through international and private FIs like the AIIB, HSBC etc. Author has not failed to look into the aspects related to the political fragility and sustainability of the overall financial architecture on which the future of these project rests. Debt trap syndrome of recipient nations are also dwelt upon.
The third Chapter, deals with the economic dimensions of china’s rise in which the author brings in the concept of “global value chain”(P.73) and links Belt and Road to china’s effort to not only prevent itself from falling into the “middle income trap”( P.75 ) but its determination to migrate from the mid value chain to join the exclusive club of nations occupying the top of this value chain. Chinese attempts to transfer its low level manufacturing along with the over-capacities of its giant construction companies, mostly SOE’s, beyond its borders and creation of a parallel market for Chinese product, processes, technologies and standards from which US will be entirely absent, is also brought out prominently. In the fourth Chapter dealing with the impact of this project on world politics, author has tried to explains the geopolitical dimensions of India’s stand on Belt and Road as well as the development of the concept of QUAD and Indo-Pacific as measures to counter the China’s overreach to the world. In hind sight, it is interesting to notice the validation of author’s accurate assessment of global implication of Chinese Belt and Road when they are matched with the current extreme international reactions to it , witnessed today.
In the final chapter Mr Bruno Maçães basically talks about three scenarios,(p.166) that Chinese ambitions are likely to lead it to. In the first scenario, China turns out a prosperous and successful economy, conforming to Western political and social model. This scenario does not envisage China replacing US hegemony but ends up developing alternate institutions in finance, trade, infrastructure and security to reduce dependence on the West. In the second scenario China replaces US primacy as the leading political and economic power of the world. However, for this author notes that ‘China will need to offer the world a vision of international order that is legitimate and functional’ (P. 168). In the third scenario author visualises a serious ‘clash between two visions of the world order’ (P. 169), in which Belt and Road poses a direct challenge to Western democracy, free market system and its liberalism.
In 2017, when the book was scripted, US-China Trade-War had not yet begun. However , as we read this book three years later, we can see with fair degree of clarity that superpower relationship has picked up the third option. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that the author in his book had done a great job of capturing the underlying invisible trends shaping the international relationships much ahead of the time with great accuracy and precision.
One major deficiency reader may find in this book is the absence of a map so critical for understanding the subject. Also those familiar with the overseas activities of china during the last decades would notice author’s omission to mention the fact that many of the projects, shown as part of Belt and Road in 2017 were actually China’s pre-existing overseas projects already in progress for many years in the past. Barring these shortcomings, Belt and Road is an important piece of analysis that is a must read for those interested in understanding the cause of superpower rivalry and impact of the control of trade routes and sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) on global geopolitics.
About Reviewer –
RS Mehta is a veteran IAF officer retired from the Indian Air Force as a Group Captain in 2012 . He is at present researching “Geopolitical Impact of BRI on South Asia and Indian ocean Region” at Amity university.
