OBOR Full Form
What is the full form of OBOR?
The Chinese government established the Belt and Road Initiative, often known as One Belt One Road or OBOR for short, as a worldwide infrastructure development strategy in 2013. It aims to invest in close to 70 nations and international organisations.
In 2017, the initiative was included in the Chinese Constitution. The plan is described by the Chinese government as "an effort to improve regional connectedness and embrace a brighter future." The goal is to have the project finished in 2049, which also happens to be the year that the People's Republic of China (PRC) turns 100.
Objectives Of The OBOR
The following are the OBOR's goals:
The development of a single, sizable market that draws on both domestic and foreign markets.
Encourage cross-cultural dialogue and fusion
Improve member countries' awareness of one another and trust in one another, which will encourage an innovative environment with cash infusions, a talent pool, and a technology database.
In conclusion, the OBOR's main goal is to close the infrastructure gap and hasten potential economic growth in the Asia Pacific region, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
India's Take On The OBOR Project
The Indian security establishment has strong reservations about China's plans related to the Silk Road.
Chinese port construction in the Indian Ocean and road construction along land borders have long been criticised by Delhi's strategic community as acts of "strategic encirclement."
The existence of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC) just makes the issue worse. The "strategic encirclement" theory is really supported by the existence of CPEC.
Optimists believe India needs to reevaluate, nevertheless. Cancelling the matter will lead to India's exclusion from the developing geo-economic Options for India.
Latest Developments Regarding OBOR
In a 2015 speech, Russia's first deputy prime minister, Igor Shuvalov, said that the Eurasian Economic Union should see the Silk Road Economic Belt as a chance rather than a threat to its traditional regional area of influence.
China and 18 Arab nations entered into a number of collaborations in April 2019 during the second Arab Forum on Reform and Development under the slogan "Build the Belt and Road, Share Development and Prosperity."
Greece, Croatia, and 14 other nations in Eastern Europe are already negotiating with China under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Italy joined the Chinese Initiative as the first country from the Group of Seven in March 2019.
The "Blue Dot Network" was established as a replacement for the Belt and Road by collaboration between Japan, India, and Australia. The primary goal of this initiative is to develop the world's infrastructure with the help of civil societies, businesses, and governments. Blue Dot Network is essentially a grading system that assesses international infrastructure (both in the Indo-Pacific region and globally) based on several factors including debt, labour standards, environmental standards, etc.
Recent United States participation has changed the alliance's name to the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP). President Donald Trump has started putting the U.S. Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP) into more actionable measures across the three pillars of governance, economics, and security, as described by officials.
End of March 2019, President Macron met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker in Paris for meetings with Xi. China was urged by Macron to "respect the unity of the European Union and the ideals it carries in the world" in that location.
Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, travelled to China on October 7 and 8 of 2019 with the primary goal of restarting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor's dormant projects.
The United States Government imposed fresh economic restrictions on specific Chinese state-owned firms and executives for "malign acts" in the South China Sea on August 2020 as a result of a modest escalation in the South China Sea dispute. These sanctions may have a negative impact on a number of OBOR-related initiatives.
The Build Back Better World Partnership (B3W) was introduced at the G7 meeting in Cornwall, England, in June 2021. In the upcoming years, the new programme pledges to invest "hundreds of billions of dollars" in sustainable and value-driven infrastructure projects in low- and middle-income nations. Many see it as the G7's response to the OBOR proposal.