While its economy desperately needs investments in infrastructure and manufacturing, India not only refuses to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s massive regional interconnectivity...Show moreWhile its economy desperately needs investments in infrastructure and manufacturing, India not only refuses to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s massive regional interconnectivity project, but claims that it violates its sovereignty and serves only China’s power ambitions. Some Indian analysts even argue that by establishing naval facilities in the Indian Ocean and strengthening land connection between China and Pakistan, the BRI is part of China’s encirclement strategy against India. Others downplay such arguments as products of unfounded distrust. Following a structural realist approach to evaluate the BRI’s implications for the economic, military, and geopolitical balance of power between China and India, this thesis presents a more complex picture. It makes the case that the BRI indeed alters the relative distribution of power to China’s advantage, but both alarmist warnings about encirclement and optimistic hopes about the potential economic benefits are exaggerated or require stronger evidence.Show less