Building of Cooperative Regime for 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road

The Sino-Indian relationship is the most important major-power relationship in Asia and is also the most subtle and complex. It has a significant impact on Asian geopolitical relations and regional economic development. Border disputes have rendered the relationship delicate and unstable for more than half a century. The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative put forward by the Chinese government is attracting much discussion in the Indian government, think tanks, and media. Indian policymakers will need to determine how to respond to China's grand blueprint for promoting regional economic cooperation in the new era. This essay will examine China's priorities for the maritime component of the OBOR initiative in the Indian Ocean, consider Indian and Chinese concerns about that aspect of the project, and evaluate India's choices with regard to participation.China's Maritime Silk Road: Key PrioritiesWhen Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Indonesia in October 2013, he claimed that Southeast Asia had been a major maritime hub since ancient times and proposed that China and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should jointly build a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The MSR is one component of Xi's OBOR initiative, with the other component being the Silk Road Economic Belt connecting Europe and Asia. Since Xi proposed the OBOR initiative, the Chinese government has strongly embraced the principle of joint construction to meet the interests and development strategies of all states involved. In March 2015, China's State Council issued the document Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, which provides a comprehensive presentation of the OBOR framework.1 It indicates that the MSR initiative will focus on jointly building smooth, secure, and efficient transport routes to connect major sea ports.The long-term blueprint for the project requires careful selection of key countries and entry points before construction begins. Two factors are taken into consideration in choosing countries for the MSR. The first is whether countries are located on maritime trade routes or have marine transportation centers, such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Singapore, Myanmar, and Kenya. A second factor is whether states respond positively to the initiative and have a good foundation of economic cooperation with China.The Indian Ocean is a major maritime trade and energy channel for China and is of great strategic significance for the stable development of the Chinese economy. Energy security, in particular, is a key priority. After becoming a net petroleum oil importer in 1993, China became the world's largest oil importer in 2015. In that year, China's imported crude oil reached 335.5 million tons, of which more than 60% was transported via the Indian Ocean. In 2015, imports represented 60.6% of total oil consumption.2 Trade security is also critical. The Indian Ocean is the most important route for imports to East Asia and Southeast Asia and for exports from these regions to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The development of port infrastructure in these key regions will not only benefit China's economic development but also greatly facilitate the social and economic development of other countries in East Asia, in Southeast Asia, and around the Indian Ocean rim.Accelerating infrastructure construction is a major factor in encouraging regional economic cooperation. Thus far, the MSR includes joint port construction in Colombo and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Gwadar in Pakistan, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, and Chittagong in Bangladesh. Some large Chinese companies are also making investments in ports such as Piraeus in Greece, Said in Egypt. and Antwerp in Belgium in accordance with their own development strategies.MSR Security Issues: Different Concerns between China and IndiaIndia's geographic location and growing economy will have a great influence on the MSR. …

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (shortened to “Maritime Silk Road” hereafter) initiative represents China’s consistent theme of peace and development. It is conducive to achieve common prosperity and progress of human society. However, challenges and opportunities often coexist. The Maritime Silk Road links the South China Sea and the northern Indian Ocean, involving a large number of countries, a wide range, and long distances. The challenging natural environment, scarcity of electricity and freshwater resources, different political and cultural bases, etc. greatly increase the difficulty of constructing the Maritime Silk Road. Obviously, an understanding the characteristics of the marine environment, energy, legal counsel and so on is a prerequisite for the safe and efficient construction of the Maritime Silk Road. However, relatively weak basic research and scarce marine data seriously restrict the full implementation of the Maritime Silk Road initiative and urgently need to be addressed. This chapter discusses the significance and challenges of the Maritime Silk Road initiative and provides corresponding countermeasures.

The study intends to explore the connection between China’s energy security, 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), and its anticipated impacts on Indo-US strategic perception in the Indian Ocean region. China’s economic prosperity and industrial boom is fomenting different variables to upset the U.S. led world order. In the back drop of energy security as core national interest, Chinese leadership has exceptionally focused the maritime domain. In addition to this, for uninterrupted industrial growth, China largely relies on energy imports that have turned its attention to the strategic value of the Sea lines of communication (SLOCs). However, China’s newly emerged interests and subsequent investment in different sea ports along the oceanic supply chain of Indian Ocean is fuelling Indo-US strategic distrust in the region. The study concludes that China’s carefully crafted Maritime Silk Road (MSR) is to challenge the status quo to protect its (China) core national interests in Indian Ocean The divergence of strategic interests in Indian Ocean is heralding a new multipart strategic competition that will transform the Indian Ocean into breeding ground for naval arm race. To understand the shifting geo political realities, the researchers used the Power Transition theory.

The study intends to explore the connection between China’s energy security, 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), and its anticipated impacts on Indo-US strategic perception in the Indian Ocean region. China’s economic prosperity and industrial boom is fomenting different variables to upset the U.S. led world order. In the back drop of energy security as core national interest, Chinese leadership has exceptionally focused the maritime domain. In addition to this, for uninterrupted industrial growth, China largely relies on energy imports that have turned its attention to the strategic value of the Sea lines of communication (SLOCs). However, China’s newly emerged interests and subsequent investment in different sea ports along the oceanic supply chain of Indian Ocean is fuelling Indo-US strategic distrust in the region. The study concludes that China’s carefully crafted Maritime Silk Road (MSR) is to challenge the status quo to protect its (China) core national interests in Indian Ocean The divergence of strategic interests in Indian Ocean is heralding a new multipart strategic competition that will transform the Indian Ocean into breeding ground for naval arm race. To understand the shifting geo political realities, the researchers used the Power Transition theory.

Since the establishment of the “Belt and Road” initiative, the investment and construction of ports along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road have received extensive attention from the international community. The evaluation of ports is of great significance to investors’ investments and construction of ports around the world, so it is very necessary to establish a reasonable port evaluation system. At present, there are few studies on defining and evaluating port resilience, and the existing port evaluation index system has defects. Therefore, according to the similarity between cities and ports, this paper introduces the concept of “three-dimensional space” and the “system of systems” theory of cities and divides the resilience of ports along the Maritime Silk Road into three-dimensional spaces of “physical-society-information.” The CRITIC-entropy method and the TOPSIS method constructed a port resilience evaluation model along the Maritime Silk Road and quantitatively evaluated and analyzed the comprehensive resilience and subspatial resilience of 28 ports along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The results show that the route network port degree, the annual throughput of the port container, and the number of fixed broadband subscribers per 100 people are the key indicators that affect the port’s physical space resilience, social space resilience, and information space resilience. Also, coordinated physical, social, and information spatial resilience development plays a catalytic role in improving overall resilience. Therefore, the investment of ports along the Maritime Silk Road should adopt corresponding and more targeted investment plans according to the actual resilience of each port. The research provides new ideas and directions for investors to invest in port construction and has certain practical guiding significance for the increase of investors’ income and the sound development of the national economy.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) designed by China is of great importance to maritime transportation, economic development, and environmental protection. However, the straits/canals along the MSR have been struggling with pirate attacks, terrorism, and accidents which pose challenges for the security of MSR. There is a strong need for further investigation in strait/canal security evaluation. However, the traditional risk modelling approach used in risk assessment indicates challenges due to its incapability of dealing with incomplete data, uncertainties, and subjective judgment. Thus, we propose a novel strait/canal security assessment framework to evaluate the security of the strait/canal along the MSR on the basis of a fuzzy evidential reasoning approach. The subjective risk analysis information collection and processing process from multiple experts can be embedded in the framework in a systematic way to provide maritime stakeholders to evaluate maritime security along the MSR. The results provide decision makers with useful insights and standard tools on enhancing strait/canal security, effective routes planning as well as operational efficiency.

The 21st century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) proposed by China strongly promotes the maritime industry. In this paper, we use wind and ocean wave datasets from 1979 to 2014 to analyze the spatial and temporal distributions of the wind speed, significant wave height (SWH), mean wave direction (MWD), and mean wave period (MWP) in the MSR. The analysis results indicate that the Luzon Strait and Gulf of Aden have the most obvious seasonal variations and that the central Indian Ocean is relatively stable. We analyzed the distributions of the maximum wind speed and SWH in the MSR over this 36-year period. The results show that the distribution of the monthly average frequency for SWH exceeds 4 m (huge waves) and that of the corresponding wind speed exceeds 13.9 m s−1 (high wind speed). The occurrence frequencies of huge waves and high winds in regions east of the Gulf of Aden are as high as 56% and 80%, respectively. We also assessed the wave and wind energies in different seasons. Based on our analyses, we propose a risk factor (RF) for determining navigation safety levels, based on the wind speed and SWH. We determine the spatial and temporal RF distributions for different seasons and analyze the corresponding impact on four major sea routes. Finally, we determine the spatial distribution of tropical cyclones from 2000 to 2015 and analyze the corresponding impact on the four sea routes. The analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the MSR provides references for ship navigation as well as ocean engineering.

The strategic importance of the Indian Ocean has been rapidly increasing and the construction of the “21st-Century Maritime Silk Road” has been upgraded to the level of national foreign policy. In this background, China will need a more clarified Indian Ocean strategy. This article takes the perspective of cooperative security analysis and argues that China should promote the security cooperation of the whole region and safeguard the Maritime Silk Road of the Indian Ocean by participating in the existing multi-lateral cooperation mechanisms of the Indian Ocean, making efforts to create new multi-lateral security cooperation mechanisms, joining hands with the great powers within and outside of the Indian Ocean region, and engaging in noncompetitive cooperation in security. The key for the promotion of the “Belt and Road” strategy is to achieve “policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people relations”. This is also closely relating to the security of the Maritime Life line in the Indian Ocean which is an important component of China’s national interests in the Indian Ocean. China needs to implement its cooperative security strategy from the following four aspects: first, we need to actively participate in the existing multi-lateral mechanisms and arrangements of the Indian Ocean region; second, we must try to establish new multi-lateral cooperation mechanisms; third, we must promote the security cooperation of the Indian Ocean through great power cooperation and coordination; and fourth, we should take advantage of the noncompetitive security regions as the first step of cooperation.

This article focuses on the connotation, capabilities, challenges, risks and the corresponding countermeasures of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The article states that the core of the MSR strategy is the cultural concepts of “balancing convergence and divergence” and “inclusive development” as well as the moral concepts of “mutual benefits” and “Do not do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you”. The strategy will uphold the basic principle of “open cooperation, harmonious inclusiveness, market operation, and mutual benefits.” Practical cooperation and joint building of the MSR will always be in the primacy of the strategy. Emphasis must be put on leveraging the comparative advantages of China and the countries along the MSR to let them coordinate with each other and reach consensus through “joint consultation” and form joint effort through “jointly building” the MSR. Countries can only achieve cooperation and mutual benefits and promote rebalancing of the regional and global economy through sharing each other’s strengths, risks and interests. The MSR strategy is composed of various economic cooperation projects between China and the countries along the MSR. However, it is also influenced by certain political and security factors and thus has geopolitical implications. But in the end, what connects the far-away regions is the economic interest. As a base and examplar, Southeast Asia is an important region for the MSR strategy.

Zhang, M.Q., 2020. Researches on the economic and trade exchanges for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. In: Qiu, Y.; Zhu, H., and Fang, X. (eds.), Current Advancements in Marine and Coastal Research for Technological and Sociological Applications. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 107, pp. 308-311. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The Maritime Silk Road in twenty-first Century is an important measurement of Belt and Road Initiative to promote trade economic and trade development between China and the other countries under the new situation of economic globalization. The import and export trade of Maritime Silk Road countries is of great significance to the economic growth of all countries. At present, there are 21 countries in the world in the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. In this paper, three countries from Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia and North Africa: Thailand, India and Turkey for research and analysis.

The transport infrastructure connection is the fundamental base for the promotion of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative. Ports, as the core elements in the connection, contribute to the practical infrastructure connections along the maritime road. A multihierarchical cooperation framework in between the ports and based on the fair and mutual benefit concept is the cornerstone of constructing the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the engine fuelling the updation of Chinese seaports and growth. This paper first defines the port cooperation along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and analyses the opportunity and challenges from the perspectives of the port‐industrial and the port‐region interaction. Then, it develops research into port cooperation, path selection, cooperation mechanisms, and application conditions in analysing port FDI, BOT, port alliances, multimode transport, and the institutional innovation of China’s ports. In conclusion, we develop a game theory selection analysis to study multiwin cooperation for port FDI in host countries along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) is a development strategy initiated by the Chinese Government to respond to the changing global landscape. As this initiative progresses, growing number of enterprises are exploring investment opportunities overseas. Consequently, it has become increasingly important to address the investment obstacles faced by these enterprises. This paper assesses the investment environment of 22 countries along the MSR from three perspectives: the macroscopic perspective of country risk, the intermediate perspective of market environment risk, and the microscopic perspective of enterprise operational risk. Such a risk assessment is crucial in facilitating Chinese enterprises that seek to expand overseas. The research findings indicate that the investment risks in countries along the MSR are substantia, and enterprises should be cautious when investing. Drawing on the analysis, this paper presents macroscopic and microscopic control measures that both governments and enterprises can implement to alleviate investment barriers.

Research on the spatio-temporal evolution of the port system along the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) can reveal the development law of ports. This study adopts the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, rank-size law, and an improved spatial and temporal correlation to investigate the spatial distribution and spatio-temporal correlation characteristics of container ports along the MSR during 2000–2019. The results show that 1) the distribution trends among port clusters have significant differences, and the gravity centre of the port system gradually shifts from Europe to Asia (market shares of European and Asian ports decline from 28.15% to 19.83% and increase from 63.80% to 66.78%, respectively); 2) the port system undergoes periodic ‘decentralisation–agglomeration–decentralisation’, and its structure gradually develops a ‘spindle’ or ‘olive’ shape; 3) the initial effect of MSR arises on the economic development of ports, and the spatial occupation ability of small- and medium-sized port clusters increases steadily; and 4) the spatial and temporal correlation gradually increases. The evolution of temporal correlation is more complicated with a bifractal structure in 2000–2010. This study can provide decision support for port development and thus clarifies the investment environment and construction of MSR.

Securing the Maritime Silk Road in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Nilanthi Samaranayake (bio) For roughly fifteen years, China's commercial and military activities in South Asia and the wider Indian Ocean have caused increasing concern about its intentions in the region. China specialists have examined the country's energy interests and naval planning along its sea lines of communication.1 The proliferation of commercial infrastructure projects now branded under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has heightened these concerns about China's presence in the Indian Ocean region. Prominent infrastructure efforts include port development in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, while lower-profile efforts include tunnel and bridge construction in Bangladesh and Maldives. These developments have raised questions about how China is attempting to secure the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR)—the waterway "road" component of BRI—in South Asia and across the Indian Ocean region more broadly. Because Pakistan will be examined by another essay in this roundtable and the China-Pakistan relationship is long-standing and predates BRI activities, this essay focuses on what China's activities look like elsewhere in maritime South Asia and out to critical Indian Ocean chokepoints. Despite notable changes in the country's presence in the Indian Ocean over the last decade, to what extent is China securing its commercial interests using naval and maritime forces? If it indeed aims to do this in a comprehensive way, then the results are modest at present. The first section of this essay examines the evidence that China is working to secure its interests in the region. The next section describes challenges to China's efforts to do so and the galvanizing effects of its activities thus far. The essay will conclude by emphasizing the importance of monitoring potential indicators of a substantive shift in the Indian Ocean and South Asian order, [End Page 21] despite the limited scope of China's activities to secure the MSR to date, and by considering the implications for U.S. interests in the region. Is China Securing the MSR? The clearest examples of China acting to secure the MSR are the counterpiracy and noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs) conducted by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and the establishment of a base in the far fringes of the Indian Ocean at the chokepoint in Djibouti. Since 2008, Beijing has sent a PLA Navy task force to the Gulf of Aden. Originating out of UN resolutions to combat piracy,2 China's military vessels have transited the Indian Ocean for the past decade, providing escort activity that aims to secure the safe passage of shipping, including for Chinese commercial vessels. China has used this mission to justify the deployment of submarines. These were clearly not in support of counterpiracy but instead appeared to be aimed at gaining operational experience far from home for this platform.3 As Admiral (ret.) Michael McDevitt observes, at any given time the PLA Navy has four to five surface ships and two support ships transiting the Indian Ocean, plus occasionally a submarine.4 India's chief of naval staff Admiral Sunil Lanba estimates a similar number (six to eight ships).5 Second, China conducted NEOs in response to domestic instability in Libya in 2011 and Yemen in 2015. In total, roughly 35,000 Chinese nationals were evacuated from Libya using Chinese civilian and military aircraft and ships,6 and nearly 1,000 Chinese and foreign nationals were evacuated from Yemen.7 Through such operations, China secured an important MSR asset—its citizens working in these countries. [End Page 22] Third, China established a military base in Djibouti in 2017. Although China had stated for decades that it had no intention of developing overseas bases, its counterpiracy operations as well as NEOs pointed to the potential benefits of having logistical support in place.8 The base leverages Djibouti's location at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait chokepoint, where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. China's presence at this far corner of the Indian Ocean shows the expanse of its operational reach across the region. Challenges to China Securing the MSR Through conducting counterpiracy operations and NEOs and establishing a base...

Port State control (PSC) is an important method which the Port State adopts to manage ship safety and marine pollution in its territory. During the process of promoting the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), subject to economic development and shipping, there is a lack of unified standards and requirements among different states along MSR, which causes many problems. Firstly, the level of economic development among countries around MSR is different leading to some countries cannot afford to develop their PSC. There is a lack of cooperation among these countries. Secondly, the PSC levels of most countries along MSR are weak. Moreover, the standards of PSC and the capacity of the officers of the Port State are different. Lastly, there is a deviation in the direction of the same State’s PSC. They are even not clear on the major functions of PSC, so they may be confused by the pre-supervision and the latter examination. Therefore, taking advantage of the experience from the successful PSC organizations, the states may learn from the examples of the new mechanism under Paris MOU and Tokyo MOU, then formulate the cooperative mechanism fitting better to them. In order to fulfill this goal, the authors shall try to unify the standards of PSC, quantify the PSC content index, and rectify the direction of PSC among different states along MSR. In the meantime, the states shall strengthen information exchanges and further develop extensive cooperation, and improve the modes of cooperation about shipyard and ship classification society among countries. Then it will create a favorable environment for the development of shipping and the MSR construction.