Beijing - Central Asia Express ...delayed

RICHARD WEITZ of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute analyzes the attractiveness of the Central Asian countries as sources of raw material, export markets, investment opportunities and conduits for trade for China stating that China could reap significant benefits although this would require significant investments to upgrade the region's railroad transportation infrastructure. In a China Brief article for Jamestown Foundation, "Afghanistan in China's Emerging Eurasian Transport Corridor", he concludes that various barriers such as suboptimal legal, policy and communications framework, and transnational threats such as narco-terrorism combined with obstacles around ownership, and financing in Central Asia to limit the effectiveness of a potential Eurasian rail network as an alternative for China to containerized cargo shipping by sea through the Indian Ocean.

China's Indian Ocean Strategy

Vijay Sakhuja, director of the New Delhi-based Indian Council for World Affairs traces the history of maritime multilateralism of China's PLA Navy in the wake of the recent Chinese naval deployment in the Gulf of Aden. In an article for Jamestown Foundation's China Brief, "Maritime  Multilateralism:  China’s Strategy for the Indian Ocean", he outlines the increasing albeit selective multilateral role of the Chinese navy among the littorals of the Straits of Malacca and the Indian Ocean and states that Beijing is leveraging its naval power for strategic purposes and the development of military maritime infrastructure in the Indian Ocean would provide China access and a basing facility for conducting sustained operations and emerge as a stakeholder in Indian Ocean security architecture.