China’s Xi rejects geopolitics behind BRI: Will India bite the bait?

Amid persistent anxieties about the nature of the Belt and Road (BRI) project among a host of countries, including India, China’s President Xi Jinping has rejected any ulterior “geopolitical calculations” behind the BRI and underlined China’s commitment to “building a community with a shared future for mankind.”
“China has no geopolitical calculations, seeks no exclusionary blocs and imposes no business deals on others,” the Chinese leader said at the Boao Forum for Asia, popularly known as ‘Asia’s Davos’, in the island of Hainan. He also assured that the project does not impose any unfavourable deals on any countries.

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With China on mind, Japan pushes quad dialogue with India, US & Australia

With China’s President Xi Jinping promising to making China a major global power at the country’s twice-in-a-decade Party Congress, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono has said that his country would soon propose a top-level security dialogue with the US, India and Australia on board.

Speaking to The Nikkei daily, he said that the “idea is for the leaders of the four nations to promote free trade and defence cooperation across a stretch of ocean from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean and all the way to Africa”. “We are in an era when Japan has to exert itself diplomatically by drawing a big strategic picture,” Mr. Kono said.

The daily reported that the foreign minister said that he had already had a brief discussion on the same with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on the sidelines of a foreign ministers meet in Manila two months back.

“Free and open seas will benefit all countries, including China and its Belt and Road Initiative,” he said, adding that dismantling North Korea’s missile programme will also focus prominently in the talks. Recently, expressing the US’s evolving view on China’s ambitious project, Mr. Tillerson had expressed concerns over China’s predatory economics and its not-so-responsible rise.

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Belt and Road initiative “a project of the century”: Xi Jinping

Chinese President Xi Jinping
said Belt and Road initiative focuses on the Asian, European and African countries,
In his opening address outlining China’s vision, Xi referred to ancient Silk Road and spoke about significance of various civilisations, including the “Indus and Ganges civilisations”. Without referring to India’s objections to the China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC), Xi said, “all countries should respect each other’s sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, each other’s development paths and social systems, and each other’s core interests and major concerns.”
Xi said the Belt and Road initiative is “a project of the century” that will benefit people across the world. Denying any attempts to form a “small group” of nations taking part in the Belt and Road initiative of which CPEC is a part, Xi said China plans to build it as a road to peace and link his country to much of Asia, Europe and Africa

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