'China quietly but relentlessly becoming global super power'

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, writer David Ignatius has said the recent meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Trumpin Beijing during the latter's first visit to China significantly revealed a possible but understated grand and ambitious strategy on the part of Beijing.

Ignatius says in his article that President Xi while talking about and promoting the idea of "win-win cooperation," with Washington, simultaneously hinted that Beijing retains the patience to achieve its goal of being eventually recognised as a global super power.

He describes China's gentle rise as "mesmerising" and reflective of the Chinese slogan "hide and bide," which the United States now views as a case of "open power play".

According to Ignatius, one only needs to see China's new network of global institutions, including the "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) plan to estimate and probably accept how it is now challenging the American-led order effectively.

According to two unpublished and unclassified studies commissioned by the Air Force, one report estimates that more than 64 nations could receive USD one trillion from China under the OBOR framework.

This, according to Ignatius, puts the 1947-conceived Marshall Plan, which provided about $150 billion in current dollars, mostly to six countries, in the shade.

The report describes OBOR as "a program of unprecedented size and scope with the strategic intent of constructing a Chinese-led regional order in Eurasia." The study describes, for example, how Beijing is financing a string of ports in the Indian Ocean region, including in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Pakistan, Burma, Djibouti, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates. The proposed investment is nearly $250 billion.

China has also invested $13.6 billion in Greece, buying control of the port of Piraeus and big shares of Greek utilities and fiber-optics companies. "Greece serves as a strategic beachhead for China into Europe," notes

the report. AGENCIES