ABSTRACT
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR), announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013,is one of the world’s biggest initiatives for promoting connectivity between China and some 65 other countries. Beijing in May 2017 orchestrated the Belt and Road Forum (BRF), which turned to be the largest diplomatic effort to display international support for the initiative. BRI has all along with it sprouted the trust deficit in many a country which were a part of the 105 nations that signed MoUs with China at the BRF. In the place of euphoria of China’s key diplomatic and economic initiative, several countries, like Pakistan, Tanzania, Hungary, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka as well as the European Union, are apprehensive of BRI clandestine designs. As expected, India has vehemently opposed China’s overarching BRI by abstaining itself from the BRF. India stuck to its opposition to CPEC running through PoK and Trans-Himalayan Economic Corridor besides being sceptical of China’s string of pearls in the Indian Ocean. The new global order demands India to reconcile to both cooperation and competition with China in areas of energy security and economic ties, not confrontation.
