#chinnationalarmy

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Monday pitched for connectivity from "The Arabian Sea to the South China Sea" even as India and Japan work together in tandem. Speaking at an event in Guwahati, Assam the EAM said, the "approach to create connectivity to and within Assam, beyond to the North-East, then to neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh, but eventually push all the way by road, by sea, by air to Vietnam, to Japan." India is working on a number of connectivity projects to connect northeast with East Asia--India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, with an aim to expand it to Vietnam via Laos. The Kaladan Multimodal transport link will provide North East access via Sittwe Project and the Paletwa Inland Water Terminal. Work is on BIMSTEC masterplan on transport connectivity via 264 projects. Jaishankar lauded India Japan partnership, calling it "natural and close" and said, "India-Japan collaboration has always had a central place in our national modernization and development efforts." Japan has been involved in the funding of the Guwahati water supply project, road connectivity in the northeast, construction of a primary school in Manipur etc. Recently New Delhi and Tokyo reached a pact for people from India to jo to Japan under "specified skilled workers" visa and will increase in people to people engagement. Read the full article

Beijing has not funded any infrastructure project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative, said the Senate Special Committee on CPEC projects. According to a report by The Express Tribune, during the committee meeting Senator Sikandar Mandhro, chief of transport planning at the Pakistan Planning Ministry, said because of the absence of the CPEC funding, some projects, including the Khuzdar-Basima project, were being carried out from the federal development funds. Meanwhile, Committee member Senator Kabir Ahmad Shahi informed that only paperwork was carried out on CPEC. "The project started in a way that a tent was set up with a watchman sitting there. The fence around the New Gwadar International Airport is a shambles," he said. Moreover, the projects under the Gwadar Smart Port City Master plan have not been started. In 2015, China announced an economic project in Pakistan worth USD 46 billion. With the CPEC, Beijing aims to expand its influence in Pakistan and across Central and South Asia in order to counter the influence of the United States and India. The CPEC would link Pakistan's southern Gwadar port (626 kilometers, 389 miles west of Karachi) in Balochistan on the Arabian Sea to China's western Xinjiang region. It also includes plans to create road, rail and oil pipeline links to improve connectivity between China and the Middle East. Read the full article