The think tank serves as a Chinese government advisory research group. (Reuters)A Chinese think tank report, released ahead of the second Belt and Road Forum scheduled to take place here this week, has named India and said that countries adopt direct or indirect measures to “interfere in China’s overseas port projects”.
The report specifically cites the example of India’s involvement in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port and its investment in Iran’s Chabahar port which the report says is only “100 km away from Gwadar port” a crucial part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The report titled ‘A Strategic Analysis on China’s Overseas Port Projects Under the Belt and Road Initiative’ is by the Grandview Institution, which calls itself an “independent” think tank on its website. The Grandview Institution also serves as a government advisory research group, it says.
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“…Holding hostile attitude towards Chinese enterprises’ overseas port investment, countries such as India and Japan compete with China by strengthening regional investment, and even take direct or indirect measures to interfere in China’s overseas port projects,” the report says.
It claims that China and Sri Lanka’s cooperation in the Hambantota Port has “aroused the vigilance on the Indian part and stimulated India to increase its investment in Sri Lanka”. “India is also developing a natural gas project in Trincomalee, the eastern coastal town of Sri Lanka. Some suggest that this may be a precursor to India’s development of ports in the region to counterbalance China’s investment in the southern and western part of Sri Lanka,” the report states.
“The construction of Gwadar Port has triggered India’s hostile attitude, intensified the confrontation between India and Pakistan, as well as India and China, and stimulated threat activities from the radicals, separatists and terrorists in Gwadar. India has created problems through public opinion and discredited the project. All these are problems that Chinese enterprises cannot ignore in the process of project construction,” the report notes.
