China’s Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) in South Asia and Its Policy Challenges to India in the Region

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in South Asia. This study also assesses China’s deeper economic cooperation with India’s neighbouring countries in light of BRI projects in the region. Further, this article looks towards India’s position with South Asian countries to counter China’s aggressiveness towards the region. India had refused to join as a partner country of China’s BRI initiative from South Asia. Similarly, India launched the ‘Neighbourhood-First Policy’ to strengthen its political and economic cooperation with South Asian countries to counter China’s geopolitical and geostrategic agenda. China’s policy ‘encircling India’ and ‘Strings of Pearls’ theory working in the South Asia region have been threatening India in the context of BRI expansion in the region. India has deep observations against China’s BRI project that is crossing from the disputed territory of India between Pakistan from Kashmir’s Gilgit–Baltistan region (Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir). In light of the abovementioned causes, this article elucidates principal conflict zones between India and China in the context of South Asia for economic and political connectivity with the subcontinent countries.