So, India and Japan are making their own trade agreement to compete with China's OBOR strategy, emphasising quality, multi-lateralism, transparency, and democracy as the main selling points to outdo what China is offering.
I think that this is likely to overshadow China's OBOR because of the Chinese government's incredible ability to make enemies, the neo-colonial nature of some of its proposed projects, and the poorly concealed ambitions for hegemony.
This economic area proposed by Japan and India will prove to be an incredible headache for Xi Jinping, who seems to have the ambition to be remembered as the one who returned China to its supposedly rightful place as world hegemon. The narrative, from Xi's perspective, can be understood like this - China is the world's oldest and greatest civilisation, and was always the wealthiest and most advanced civilisation until sometime in the 1800s when it fell behind in the "century of humiliation," destroyed by upstart nations with technology but lacking in the superior culture that comes from China's supposedly uniquely long 5000 years of history. Then, the glorious Communist Party was founded, Mao liberated China ending her humiliation, and then Deng made China rich, and the next major step is to be Xi making China the next global superpower - thus returning things to the natural order, ending China's humiliation for good and ultimately being remembered as greater than both Mao and Deng. The OBOR strategy should be understood in this light.
This is part of the reason for Xi's campaign against western "universal values" and revival of Confucianism. If China is history's greatest civilisation, it is not right that it should emulate the political system of inferior cultures - I've started to notice a lot of propaganda slogans calling for patriotism and "confidence in our system". What is happening under Xi is a synthesis of the CCP neo-Leninist structure with Xi's own take on Confucianism. That is, everyone has a fixed role in a hierarchy - the CCP are the enlightened rulers, selected by a meritocratic system, and their virtue gives them the right to rule without question. The apparent rollback on gender equality and, more recently, homosexuality, probably relate to reviving the Confucian idea of the family, or more likely, homosexuality and feminism are too strongly associated with western liberalism to be acceptable. Based on the leaked plan for China Pakistan Economic Corridor, it also appears that China plans to spread its own supposedly superior system to undermine the dominance of democratic ideals, first starting with weak and corrupt central Asian autocracies such as Pakistan and the former Soviet republics.
The problem with this plan is that it is utterly delusional and hubristic, and is a consequence of the CCP closing off outside influences and believing their own propaganda. Due to its lack of soft power and off-putting political system, China is not as strong as Xi believes it to be. Despite the history they learn of China throughout history being a sagely beacon of peace and wisdom admired and envied by all for its superior culture, this has never really been the case - it may at certain times have been the largest medieval economy, but only because it was also the largest in area and population, and even then India was often richer and more culturally influential. (Buddhism and Daoism spread to China, but Confucianism didn't spread to India - and don't get me started on how ludicrous the claim to somehow have a longer history than anywhere else is) In fact China's political system is deeply unattractive and unappealing, and an ideology based entirely on nationalism and a belief in your own inherent cultural superiority has little universal appeal beyond those who are part of the supposedly superior culture. The weakness of this strategy is also a consequence of the CCP's absolute authority - "no why" is a running joke among foreigners in China because it is encountered so often whenever you try to find out why you have been ordered to do some seemingly pointless or random task. People are expected to obey the leaders, and not to question the purpose, logic, necessity, or efficiency of the activity. This produces a leadership who are singularly bad at persuasion, as they are not used to ever having to explain themselves. The criticism of OBOR for being too vague and lacking in transparency is a symptom of this problem.
As I said earlier in the thread - the same forces of globalisation that allowed China to develop through technological transfer and a large pool of cheap labour are now working against it - as costs of operating in China rise, many low waged manufacturing companies, such as Foxconn, are now setting up shop in India instead. By over-reaching and acting arrogant and hypocritical towards its neighbours, China has succeeded only in mobilising India and Japan into an alliance to counter-act China's masterplan and to prevent it achieving dominance, something which is quite possibly an existential threat for Japan. This alliance is highly likely to steal OBOR's thunder, as a consequence of Xi Jinping successfully alienating South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, and behaving imperiously in Africa. Additionally, the crackdown in Xinjiang and rise of Islamophobia - a consequence of state propaganda designed to show how western liberal multiculturalism was destroying western society by letting terrorists in - may also cause problems in winning over the Muslim regions, and militants have already been targeting Chinese workers and projects in Pakistan. Again, the CCP leadership is not used to the idea of not being able to control information, and of people's opinions of what they do actually having a material impact.
The coming backlash against, and failure of, OBOR - something which I think is highly likely - will be enormously damaging to Xi Jinping, as this project has been hyped to extremes, linked heavily to him, and propaganda about how great it will be is ubiquitous. So a failure will not escape people's attention and will be hugely damaging as a national humiliation. Combined with the possibility of an economic crisis and China's first recession since the Great Leap Forward, there could be a perfect storm ahead which could threaten CCP rule. If India's population overtakes China's, as it is projected to by 2022, and if India's economic growth continues to outpace China's for an extended period of time while China is in crisis or stagnation, and if India outmaneuvers China geopolitically, that will also be a tremendous blow to the Sinocentric worldview and belief in the inevitability of Chinese hegemony. The image of China taught in history books is of as a peaceful power (every war in Chinese history is rewritten as defensive) whose power lay it its Confucian virtue which others would seek to emulate. China's soft power fail - as a result of its unattractive political system, as some people will doubtless start to realise - would also be a huge blow to this worldview.
It will take decades probably, but a combination of these factors is likely to spell the end of the CCP - I hope by the 2030s but that may be overly optimistic, and I'm afraid that when things start going bad the CCP will claim there is a plot to destroy China and lash out militarily, which would be very worrying indeed.
This article below gives more information about the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, the Indo-Japanese economic plan which stands a good chance of foiling Chinese plans for hegemony:
India and Japan's AAGC vs China's OBOR
This article in The Diplomat also gives more information about the project, although strangely doesn't mention OBOR or China at all, even though the purpose of the AAGC is clearly to scupper Chinese plans for dominance.
Thinking Africa: India, Japan, and the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor
