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China's "One Belt One Road" (OBOR) Initiative forms the centerpiece of China's leadership's new foreign policy. The initiative aspires to put the nations of Asia, Oceania, Europe, and Africa on a new trajectory of higher growth and human development through infrastructural connectivity, augmented trade, and investment. The initiative offers tremendous opportunities for international economic cooperation, especially for African nations. This article examines China-Africa relations, centering on the possibility of expanding the OBOR initiative to cover more African nations. Africa has been the focus of China's foreign policy since 2013. A study on the implementation of OBOR in Africa will allow for a better understanding of contemporary China-Africa relations, while hopefully providing answers to some of the questions surrounding the issue. In this article, we carefully examine the economic drivers, challenges – with suggestions on ways to navigate those challenges – and opportunities of the OBOR initiative.

The sustainable development of socioeconomic and environmental systems are highly dependent on water capital and water utilization efficiency. Nowadays, a significant portion of the world is facing water security issues due to a combination of various factors. As a result, socioeconomic and environmental systems are threatened. China is also currently experiencing problems. Water security assessment helps to identify key determining factors for optimal water utilization, so the authors present the Driving Forces-Pressures-Carrying Capacity-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSCIR) water security assessment framework. Unlike previous methods, the proposed framework incorporates the carrying capacity of the environment, and as a result, yields assessment results that are more realistic. As a case study, the proposed framework coupled with the entropy method is applied to assess the water security status of the One Belt and One Road (B& ; R) region in China. In addition, the water security level of the provinces and municipalities in this region are simulated for the time period from 2017 to 2022 using the Grey Prediction Model. The results show that Responses, State, Pressures, and Carrying Capacity Subsystems greatly influence water security of the region. According to the assessment, water security of the area improved from 2011 to 2016. The results portray the following trend among the three subregions of the study area, the water security of the 21st Maritime Silk Road (One Road) area is better than Silk Road Economic Belt (One Belt) and the Strategy Support and Pivotal Gateway (SSPG) of B& ; R areas. Generally, from the evaluation results it can be concluded that only focusing on the subsystem of Responses cannot entirely address the water security problems within the B& ; R area. Therefore, to ensure sustainable water security in the region and in the country, the government needs to design water resource management mechanisms that take all the subsystems into account.

A story of connectivity, part of the international diplomatic arena with routes, hubs, and corridors has been set as the mantra of the Belt and the Road of China. In 2013, when China's paramount leader, Mr. Xi took a visit in mostly Central Asia and Southeast Asia, he initiatively proposed to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. It is then being abbreviated as OBOR (One Belt One Road) which represents China's audacious vision to transform political region in Europe, Africa, and Asia for decades to come. The initiative absolutely calls for a greater integration of those regions into a cohesive economic area through building infrastructure, increasing cultural exchanges, and broadening trade. This centerpiece of Mr. Xi's foreign policy has been categorized as the most important feature of the country to show its charm in offering a deeper connection and a bundle of developmental pledges towards all neighboring countries. Indonesia, the south neighboring country of China, is also included in the orbit of convergence with Jokowi's vision and foreign politics strategies 'to be a global maritime fulcrum.' Both are in attempt to reinvigorate what each apprehends as their previous maritime glory. However, there are several limits of cooperation between the two sides, in particular the territorial issue in the South China Sea. Confrontations in fishing and coast guard ships, including a domineering manner of China's foreign conduct are the current impediments to advance cooperation. Yet, it is evident that Indonesia will need Chinese investments in order to realize the Global Maritime Fulcrum. All in all, this research aims to analyze the concept of connectivity between two sides as well as to explore on how Indonesia and China could maintain their partnership to achieve each specific national goals without stepping on each other's toes

Along with the flows of China's foreign direct investment following the newly implemented 'One Belt, One Road' strategy by the Chinese government will likely generate movements of state employees, entrepreneurs, workers and accompanying family members to respective countries along the Belt and Road. It is not clear how large Chinese migration flows into these countries will be, who they are, how the public reception of the host society will be and how well the migrants will be integrated in the destination country. Based on extant data and literature on current Chinese migration, this paper describes trends and patterns of recent Chinese migration in Africa and Asia, analyses host country public perceptions on China and investigates integration patterns of Chinese migrants. Given that the 'One Belt, One Road' strategy has only been officially endorsed in 2015, it is still early to analyse its impacts on Chinese migration in the respective countries. Considering earlier Chinese overseas migration in the past decades, this paper presents potential migration and integration patterns one may expect following the Belt and Road initiative.

This Policy Report focuses on the overland routes that connect China to Europe via Central Asia and it aims to answer the question whether the European Union (EU) should engage China in the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. The expansion of the OBOR initiative is forcing China's economic diplomacy to embrace a broader political and security engagement. While Russia and the United States are revising their roles in South and Central Asia, the EU has lost momentum.

This Policy Report focuses on the overland routes that connect China to Europe via Central Asia and it aims to answer the question whether the European Union (EU) should engage China in the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. The expansion of the OBOR initiative is forcing China's economic diplomacy to embrace a broader political and security engagement. While Russia and the United States are revising their roles in South and Central Asia, the EU has lost momentum.

This article examines One Belt One Road (OBOR) strategic implications for India. It is argued that the implications need to be considered within the framework of the future development of the China–India relationship. The relationship is largely constrained by and embedded in the security dilemma at the present time. Taking the opportunity offered by the OBOR initiative, China and India should explore building a 'new model of major power relationship' between the two countries. While the border issue and regional security rivalry may not find an easy way out, it should not impede the leaders of the two countries from expanding the areas of cooperation and building up strategic trust between the two peoples. Beijing and New Delhi can and should find more areas of cooperation on non-traditional security issues, such as food security, water, energy, strategic metals, common concern over environmental protection and climate change and reforming the post-war international economic order.

In the light of the EU-Africa Summit 2017 and of the G20 Summit 2017 with Africa being one of the focus areas, China's engagement in Africa seems more relevant than ever. China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative (OBOR) or silk road initiative is often referred to as a Eurasian infrastructure network initiative, but it is in fact much more than that. The maritime silk road is supposed to go past the coast of East Africa, where several ports are being built and will be built. Furthermore, ports are not only planned and under construction on the maritime silk road's direct way along Africa's east coast through Suez Canal, but also on coasts of Central and West Africa. Some of those ports are planned to be connected to Africa's hinterland by roads and railways - in some cases all the way from the east coast to the west coast. OBOR is thus not only about Eurasia, but also to a significant extent about Africa. There even is a second belt – on the African continent (see below).

The "New Silk Road" or "One Belt–One Road" (also "Belt and Road") is a global project initiated by China, the implementation of which affects various areas of development of many states and regions of the world, including security issues, socio-cultural, political, diplomatic and civilisational aspects.
A total of 173 agreements with 125 states and 29 international organisations have been signed under this initiative. The project is gaining momentum every year and attracts ever more researchers who analyse the economic, political, and cultural sides of the project and the interaction of the different countries and regions with China within the framework of this global enterprise. This article assesses the participation of five Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) in the Chinese project and aims to define the mutual interests of the parties on the basis of economic indicators (i.e., ESI, RCA, TDC, and G-L indexes).