China drops BCIM from BRI projects' list

Beijing, April 28 (IANS) Beijing has dropped the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM) from the list of projects covered under its trillion-dollar connectivity Belt and Road.


For reasons immediately not known, the name of the corridor was not in the list of projects mentioned in the annex of the Joint Communique of the Leaders' Roundtable of the second edition of the Belt and Road summit that concluded on Saturday.

India did not attend the event in protest against the project's artery -- the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) -- as it traverses through the disputed Kashmir held by Islamabad.

Like the CPEC, BCIM is also one of the major six corridors of the Belt and Road project. It aims to connect China's eastern city of Kunming with India's Kolkata through Dhaka in Bangladesh and Mandalay in Myanmar.

India had not opposed the BCIM but its response to the project was tepid as it said to have concerns about China expanding its influence in its eastern neighbouring countries.

It also fears the project would expose its northeastern region.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CPC) on April 22 in its report referred to BCIM as a project under the Belt and Road Initiative.

"Over the past five years or so, the four countries (of the BCIM) have worked together to build this corridor in the framework of joint working groups, and have planned a number of major projects in institutional development, infrastructure connectivity, cooperation in trade and industrial parks, cooperation and opening up in the financial market, cultural exchange, and cooperation in enhancing people's wellbeing," says the report titled "The Belt and Road Initiative Progress, Contributions and Prospects,"

It was released by the Leading Group for Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative of the CPC.