China’s Maritime Silk Road and Asia

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) can be considered as the most significant strategic outreach by China. It stretches across the large oceanic geography comprising the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the North-Western Atlantic. The initiative, founded on historic recall, aims to build a flourishing multi-sectoral maritime economic network across the entire region with land corridors connecting to the terrestrial Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB). It is premised on monetary integration, infrastructure development, connectivity and, people-to-people contacts. It is also an accepted fact that such a vast enterprise would have politics and security as attendant factors. This book examines the broader strategic threads that are at play in this grand and ambitious trans-regional initiative unveiled by China.