China wants Inida in New Silk Route plan

China has invited India for the joint development of an economic belt along the Silk Road and a Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century and considered as New Silk Route (NSR) project.

The NSR is considered as Chinese President Xi Jinping's pet project to build a wide network of New Silk Route (NSR) on land and seas to enhance global connectivity.

The Chinese government believes that India naturally is an important partner in this One belt and One Road. Even they are inviting friendly neighboring countries to participate and tie up in New Silk Route (NSR).

China is not forcing any country to be part of NSR.

China is giving final touches to its most ambitious plan to build a wide network of new silk route to enhance global connectivity.

From historical point of view India is the converging point of Maritime Silk road (MSR) and the ancient Silk Road on land.

For more than 2,000 years India had very good exchanges with China through the passage of the South Silk Road.

So in China we have a belief that China and India both placed the trail of silk roads and MSR and we both have benefited from the roads.

The new Silk Route project involves a maze of highways on land and port connectivity by sea. 

The main intention of these projects is to revive China's trade links especially its sagging exports besides globally enhancing its sphere of influence.

China is preparing to build the New Silk Road (NSR) from the historic city of Xian, once the flourishing capital of imperial China.

The Silk Road had enabled China's famous Buddhist scholar Xuanzang to visit India in 600 AD and return with Buddhist scriptures. This had helped the spread of Buddhism in North-eastern Asia.

What are the advantages of New Silk route to India?

• This new Belt and Road initiatives are inclusive in nature because they are a banner of unity among nations and a commitment to cooperation.
• They will contribute to greater connectivity and complementarity among east Asia, central Asia, south Asia, southeast Asia and west Asia, and help to develop and improve our supply chain, industrial chain and value chain. It will, thus, bring pan-Asian and Eurasian regional cooperation to a new level.
• This initiative will help to boost

1. Infrastructure development and structural innovation.
2. To improve business environment of the region.
3. To facilitate an orderly and unimpeded flow of production factors and their efficient distribution.
4. To accelerate development of landlocked countries and the remote areas, to lower costs and barriers of trade and investment.
5. To drive greater reform and opening up by regional countries.

• This initiative will help to strengthen exchanges among people of different nations, regions, classes and religions, to explore the potential of the "soft" aspect of exchanges and cooperation, and to consolidate the foundation of friendship among people and contribute positively to peace and development in Asia.
• Some of the existing projects of cooperation between India and China like the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor and Chinese industrial parks in India can be included in the cooperation.
• India's Look East policy as well as the BIMSTEC Cooperation also can be integrated with the Belt and the NSR initiative.

What should India Focus for New Silk route initiative?

In this era of globalisation, India needs to follow our ancestors' footsteps along the ancient Silk Road to benefit of our self-interest.

• We should strengthen our policy of coordination by making use of bilateral mechanisms such as China-India Strategic Economic Dialogue to increase the convergence of our strategy of development.
• We should explore the possibility of improving cross-border transportation infrastructure in the border areas without dispute to work for a transport network linking China and India, as well as linking east and south Asia.
• We should focus on trade and investment.  Considering this initiative, China is ready to expand its investment in India and reduce our trade imbalance. We should push forward our consultations to result in the China-India regional trade agreement in due time. Meanwhile, efforts should be made to remove trade and investment barriers, to improve circulation and quality of the regional economy and make the regional cooperation even bigger.
• We can work for financial settlement in Chinese yuan and Indian rupee, encourage currency swap, strengthen banking cooperation and set up regional financial institutions for development to bring down transaction costs and enhance regional arrangement to fend off financial risks.
• Besides existing people-to-people exchange mechanisms, we should continue to enhance exchanges, especially at the grassroots level, establish more sister cities and provide more facilities for people-to-people exchanges to promote friendship between China and India.

New Silk Route railway line links China, Europe (Yuxinou Railway)

Yuxinou Railway is one of the world's longest railway covering about 11,000 km.

It is a rail route linking the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing with Duisburg, Germany.

It passes through the Alataw Pass  into  Kazakhstan, and moves through Russia, Belarus and Poland before arriving in Duisburg.

Name Yu'xin'ou is an acronym, consisting of Yu (Chongqing), Xin (Xinjiang), Ou Europe.

The Yuxinou train is operated by Trans Eurasia Logistics, a joint venture between Deutsche Bahn and Russian Railways.(Deutsche Bahn is the German railway company)

Duisburg is a steel making town on the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr river.

It boasts world's biggest inland port and is Germany's most important and commercial hub.

This route is particularly useful for Chongqing which is hub of car parts manufacture and IT companies.

The value of this rail link known in China as the New Silk Route.

The 11,179 km route takes 13 to 16 days to reach Duisburg from Chongqing, compared to the container ship transport which takes 36 days.

This rail route is safer and less expensive compared with the sea-route.

About Ancient Silk Route-

Around 2,000 years ago, a Chinese emperor of the Han Dynasty sent his envoy, Zhang Qian, to the unknown west in search of allies to resist the threat of northern nomads.

Unexpectedly, Zhang's journey pioneered a significant bond between China and Central Asia.

Since then, a trade road linking China and Central Asia—even stretching as far as Europe—formed and countries along the road thrived.

The historic Silk Road was the world's longest trade route on land.

The Silk Road got its name from the lucrative trade of Chinese silk during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220).

Over 2,100 years ago, Zhang Qian (about 164-114 B.C.), the Han Dynasty envoy, expanded the trade routes to central Asia.

Since then, commodities including silk, tea and chinaware have been transported from Chang'an (today's 

Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province) to central Asia, west Asia and even Europe via the trade route and commodities from these destinations also found their way back to China.

Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Europe and Arabia. It opened long-distance political and economic interactions between the civilizations.

Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies were shared.

In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of cultural trade between the networking civilizations.

After the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), China's political center was shifted to the northern part and its economic center was shifted to the eastern coast and southern areas.

Shipping became the top choice for commodity transport and the Silk Road was later gradually abandoned.

Although the ancient Silk Road was eventually replaced by shipping routes via sea, China and Central 

Asian countries have great incentive to revive the historic link under the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit.

 Benefits Renewal of ancient route to China-

The new economic belt will benefit China's underdeveloped western region, which has abundant energy and mineral resources.

It will tap the potential of west China (the Chinese Government launched the Go West strategy in the 1990s.)

The Go West strategy has been elaborated upon the conception of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative.

This strategy will boost the development of the eastern, central and western regions of China and opening-up of inland cities.

Another reason for the initiative is to consolidate China's trade ties with central Asian countries.

Trade between China and central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and 

Kyrgyzstan, reached $46 billion in 2012, surging 13.7 percent year on year.

Energy trade has accounted for the bulk of trade volume between China and central Asian countries.

Central Asian countries have abundant natural gas and petroleum resources while China has a huge demand for them.

The two sides are highly complementary to have great potential to cooperate in that regard.

The proposal to establish such a belt is to a large extent for securing China's energy supplies. Central Asia, known as the energy resource base of the 21st century, boasts abundant natural resources.

China needs to expand its channels and sources for oil imports because imported oil will account for 75 percent of China's domestic consumption by 2020.

The countries on the 'new Silk Road' must work together to maintain the stability of the region and help 

China to combat separatist, extremist and terrorist forces.

Terrorist activities in China have become more prevalent in recent years, which have triggered panic among the public and endangered state security.( Extremists using terrorist bases on the Pakistan-

Afghanistan border for training to create disturbances in China). Development in the region will help curb the menace.

China needs to strengthen international cooperation in fighting terrorism. Stronger trade and cultural relationships with other countries in the region would be hugely beneficial for those aims.

After the pullout of US-led Nato forces from Afghanistan, there will be chances of bringing peace to the war-torn country and improving economic cooperation.