Biden, Modi and G20 allies unveil rail and shipping project linking India to Middle East and Europe

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By AAMER MADHANI and JOSH BOAK
Updated 10:49 AM CDT, September 9, 2023

NEW DELHI (AP) — President Joe Biden and his allies on Saturday announced plans to build a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and Europe, an ambitious project aimed at fostering economic growth and political cooperation.

“This is a big deal,” said Biden. “This is a really big deal.”

The corridor, outlined at the annual Group of 20 summit of the world’s top economies, would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the European Union, said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.

Sullivan said the network reflected Biden’s vision for “far reaching investments” that come from “effective American leadership” and a willingness to embrace other nations as partners. He said the enhanced infrastructure would boost economic growth, help bring countries in the Middle East together and establish that region as a hub for economic activity instead of as a “source of challenge, conflict or crisis” as it has been in recent history.




Read more: https://apnews.com/article/biden-modi-infrastructure-g20-europe-middle-east-eb8988dfbd6c9c6f2c411c893d548333

[Alexander Of Assyria]

1. Excellent! And G20 added African Union to this growing economic pact!

Doing the good work is too boring for the American media to cover much…there’s a fascist circus in town and it won’t ever leave it seems! Entertainment over content…that is mostly the news today.

Now time to infrastructure up Africa, join other nations doing that already….long range vision is what America has been lacking, in part due to not passing a budget in a decade…and even then only by force, not consensus.

And no more debt traps with interest triple going rate, then sold to private vulture equity funds,.. we good guys?

[BlueWavePsych]

13. The Rise and Fall of the BRI

China’s ascent as an international financier (especially in low-income countries) has been accompanied by claims that it engages in so-called debt-trap diplomacy. The term originated in 2017 to describe a deal that saw Beijing receive a 99-year lease for the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka after the country fell behind on debt payments and has since been more widely applied to any Chinese project that conflicts with Western interests, especially those under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Western media and senior policy officials seem to feel that China is using the BRI to exert undue influence over the world, especially because the initiative mostly funds infrastructure rather than the social sector projects, such as health or education initiatives, that are often favored by large multilateral donors and Western nations. Critics worry that China will be able to seize control of these assets for military use or use them as leverage in future negotiations.

In reality, this lending is nothing new; China has been providing economic aid and technical assistance to other countries since the 1950s, shortly after the official founding of the People’s Republic of China and a time when China itself was still a developing nation. The real reason why the BRI has struggled to sustain itself is not due to debt traps or predatory lending, but something far more mundane: poor risk management and a lack of attention to detail and cohesion from the Chinese state-owned enterprises and banks, private companies, and local governments involved.

China is now realizing the true cost of the BRI, as it is forced to choose between repayment on the hundreds of billions in loans its companies and state banks have issued and whatever goodwill it may have accumulated through this initiative. Top Chinese officials such as Wang Wen, chief economist of China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (aka Sinosure), and even Xi Jinping himself, have warned Chinese developers and financiers of BRI projects to step up their risk management and stressed the need for improved quality control. For all of its faults, the original vision of the BRI has its merits – infrastructure and connectivity projects are key to fostering development in low-income countries, and sometimes China is the only willing financier. If the BRI can be saved, it will require both the Chinese government officials and host countries to implement rigorous risk management procedures and to improve coordination at all project stages. China should be wary lest the BRI follow the path of its ancient predecessor, with fragmentation contributing to decline and eventual collapse.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/rise-and-fall-bri

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Not that the details available so far make much sense

This is the most detail I can find:

The project will involve transit by ship between India and Saudi Arabia, followed by a rail link to the UAE and likely to Jordan from where the shipment will move by sea to Turkey and further by rail.

https://theprint.in/diplomacy/connecting-india-middle-east-europe-g20-marks-launch-of-mega-infra-plan-seen-as-counter-to-bri/1753966/

The Saudi Arabian coast (either its Gulf or Red Sea coast) is further from India than the UAE. Jordan's one port is on the Red Sea, so you'd have to take that ship through the Suez Canal (why not just send a ship from India there in the first place?).

But then it says

“Between India and Dubai, it will be a sea link likely through the Kandla and JNPT ports. Traditionally, both Kandla and JNPT ports have had a lot of trade movement with the Dubai port. Among the private ports, Mundra port in Gujarat has a lot of trade movement with Dubai port and can be part of the connectivity link,” said a senior ministry official who did not want to be named.
...
On the other hand, the Dubai port will also likely be the starting point for the rail link being proposed as part of the project, connecting the UAE to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and Europe, the official said.

Well, that would make more sense (by sea to bypass Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, which aren't going to work, politically). But it's quite different from the first bit. No wonder it says

“Once a formal announcement is made, the finer details of the project will be worked out,” added the official.

Yeah, where the route goes is a "finer detail".

[Alexander Of Assyria]

3. Iran Iraq and any nation will work if the politics is put aside in favor of trade and economic

prosperity for all the peoples linked…I think that’s the main point of the announcement.
Peace and prosperity through links, not bombs.
Politics is often put aside even today, factoring economics…see Saudi Arabia and a nation that is the beacon of democracy….

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Just a slight "if", there

Do you really think Iran would work with the USA or the EU, and vice versa? Remember, they're busy arming Russia at the moment. Apart from the sanctions about nuclear weapons. The rapprochement that Kerry achieved 7 years ago is long gone.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

7. America working with Saudi, suppliers of lots of weapons to the murderous dictators even!

Iran worked with the world in a nuclear disarmament deal America tore apart for no good reason…there’s that as well…trust in America has to be restored in the world where it is lost,

[oldsoftie]

8. Oh for God's sake.

[dembotoz]

4. safe inexpensive trade routes are a good thing

curious to see how they expect to pull this off.


perhaps next we could find a way to have amtrak from chicago to atlanta

[oldsoftie]

9. Expected to be complete by 2080.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

10. International infrastructure plan requires decades of planned construction...a nation that can't

plan a single annual budget is going to have problems understanding the whole decades long range thinking and planning parts!

Move ahead with the planning and funding…the politics and military will tag along behind the civilian spending , for a change…

[TeamProg]

6. K&R Thanks for posting. n/t

[ananda]

11. Take that and stuff it, russia!

Good!

[BlueWavePsych]

12. Bravo! A better alternative to China's Belt and Rail Inititive.

The Real Problem with the Belt and Road Initiative Isn’t Strategic

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was supposed to be a masterstroke of geopolitics. China financed and built infrastructure projects in the developing world, buying third-world countries’ loyalty while enriching itself. It made a total of about $1 trillion in loans for infrastructure in poor countries in the past ten years.

Now, while the country’s domestic economy faces its own slate of crises, the BRI is also in trouble. It doesn’t appear to have purchased the geopolitical loyalty that China had hoped. And it’s losing a bunch of money, too.

The technical financial term to describe a lot of these loans is “really stupid.”

China makes these problems worse by not being transparent about its loans (which is also a problem with its local-government finances). “According to a 2021 study in the Journal of International Economics, approximately half of China’s loans to the developing world are ‘hidden,’ meaning that they are not included in official debt statistics,” Bennon and Fukuyama write. That means it’s impossible to accurately assess credit risk before a crisis happens. Then, when the crisis comes and the hidden debts are revealed, there’s no trust in the restructuring process.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-real-problem-with-the-belt-and-road-initiative-isnt-strategic/

[DallasNE]

14. Rail And Shipping

I would like to see the map because of both geographic and geopolitical obstacles such a route poses.

To the west of India lies Pakistan and to the north of India lies China. That pretty much leaves a shipping route most of the way, including into the Red Sea where a rail head would start. Good luck threading that needle northwestward from there with all of the bad actors in that region.