In tune with its effort to interface India’s Mausam and Spice Route projects with its Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiative, China is making headway in integrating a Mongolian and a Russian initiative to develop another spur of its ambitious Silk Road land corridor.
China wants to include Mongolia’s “Steppe road” initiative, and link up with the Moscow-driven transcontinental rail plan to develop the China-Mongolia-Russia (CMR) economic corridor.
The CMR initiative is similar to two other undertaking initiated by China: the recently inaugurated Pakistan-China economic corridor, and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor.
China is encompassing a string of initiatives, hoping to sprout several new “growth engines” in Eurasia under the “Belt and Road” umbrella.
Faced with the challenge of convincing governments to integrate their national plans within the “Belt and Road” initiative, the Chinese have already sounded their readiness to enmesh India’s Mausam and Spice Route projects within the framework of its larger plans.
Link with MausamChina’s ambassador to India, Le Yucheng told The Hindu , in an interview that China was “willing to strengthen communication and coordination with India, to link the ‘Belt and Road’ initiatives with India’s ‘Spice Route’ and ‘Mausam’ projects, and bring tangible benefits to the peoples in our two countries and throughout the region.”
