A coordinating institution to give impetus to OBOR is needed

CHINA'S President Xi Jinping's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) project to link Asia (plus parts of the Middle East and North Africa) with Europe via a nexus of land and maritime highways has been described as a "grand vision" and it faces the prospect of remaining just that - a vision only.

What is clear now, four years after OBOR - or BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) as some prefer to call it - was announced, is that without some kind of institutional form and membership structure, OBOR cannot function easily as the bridge or conduit between nations that Mr Xi envisaged. It anticipates projects in no fewer than 64 countries but without any central authority to coordinate them. Each country has its own borders, laws, regulations and business practices. Linking them all together could become an administrative, logistical and political nightmare.

This latter aspect has been underlined by the Indian government's objection to one of OBOR's half dozen "economic corridor" projects, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Indian government argues that this corridor passes through a part of Kashmir that belongs to India. Washington has backed New Delhi on this issue. At a congressional hearing last week, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said: "In a globalised world, there are many belts and many roads, and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating 'one belt, one road'", particularly if it involves disputed territory. He was responding to a US senator who described the OBOR strategy as one that "seeks to secure China's control over both the continental and the maritime interest, in their eventual hope of dominating Eurasia and exploiting natural resources there", both of which are "at odds with US policy".