End of the Road?
A master plan to project Chinese power, influence and trade across much of the world could well undermine all three.
A bulldozer working on the Chinese-financed Gwadar Port in Pakistan.
Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg
As a line on a map, Malaysia’s East Coast Rail Link makes sense. Slashing diagonally across the peninsula from Port Klang at one end to the port of Kuantan and towns north at the other, the project looks well-situated to encourage travel and commerce, and to spread prosperity from the country’s rich west to its poorer east.
Connecting its dotted line to others spreading outward from China to the Middle East, Africa and Europe only strengthens the case. As a critical link in China’s “trillion-dollar” global infrastructure scheme, the so-called Belt and Road Initiative, it would enable oil and other commodities to flow from the Middle East to mainland China without making the age-old journey by ship through the narrow and easily blockaded Strait of Malacca. Seen this way, the project seems not just a solid investment but also a stroke of strategic genius.