The Belt, Road & Runway - the Open Skies Opportunity for China
More than just a series of trade-routes along the old Silk Road, China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) is a monumental project in political-economic relations and Soft Power. In facilitating greater ease of resource and capital movements within the region, whilst enhancing local infrastructure along the way, China can lay claim to having helped generate otherwise inaccessible economic growth in several BRI member countries. At its core, the project’s key success factor is the notion of interconnectivity, and an array of strategically developed land, sea and rail routes have ensured smooth and efficient delivery of various goods and natural resources within the zone. But with such a focus on interconnectivity, there invariably lies a glaring weakness, which takes the form of a lack of BRI-specific aviation strategy.
As such, the so-called Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) of Central Asia have long necessitated greater air-connectivity. These countries, which are situated along the Belt & Road, are home to notoriously poor aviation industries, which are typified by a shortage of scale, tired infrastructure and old, inefficient and costly aircraft. Typically aviation industries in these countries have been loss-making, and a headache for their governments. As such, the recent Bek Air crash in Almaty, from which 12 passengers died as an old Fokker 100 skidded off the runway upon take-off, acts as an unfortunate symbol of the state of aviation in the region. In turn, it appears that there is significant scope for China to lead a new aviation scheme in the BRI, which at a hypothetical level, seems to be a fitting endeavour for the world’s to-be largest commercial aviation industry.
Enhancing the aviation capacities of the BRI would hold several positive spin-offs. The most obvious is that it would naturally increase the potential of the overall BRI project, facilitating even greater efficiency of movement of key resources, capital and people. Beyond trade, the benefits would also tap into the likes of tourism and social-economic relations, with superior regional connectivity naturally affording greater exposure and options for BRI member citizens to travel, mingle and invest in one another. This all would work to generate employment and economic growth amongst the countries, thereby having the potential to improve local standards-of-living, whilst from China’s perspective, heightening the purchasing power of their trade partners. Crucially, in its effective role of Project Manager, China could also achieve substantial Soft Power gains, taking the role of Regional Development champion. By taking on the responsibility of improving a vital industry within the BRI members’ economies, of which their governments are incapable of properly upholding and underwriting, this would be a genuine case of China generating a series of mutually beneficial outcomes.
China has the resources and capabilities at its disposal to make such a strategy come to life. With its virtually unrivalled access to finance, capital and expertise, China could allocate a portfolio of aircraft from its three large, government-owned national carriers[1], along with a taskforce of pilots and experts, and send them over to the LLDCs. In turn, you assign them with the task of training, developing and improving the overall aviation environment amongst the BRI members, in a bid to ultimately increase the level of interconnectivity both within and amongst the countries. Moreover, there could be a concerted effort to improve local facilities, operations and infrastructure such as runways, terminals and air-traffic management, which in and of itself, would provide a range of new local employment opportunities. Naturally, the knowledge-transfer acts as a crucial piece of the puzzle, although China has a poor reputation for this in other projects
Finally, with reference to the Chinese aircraft that would be sent to operate in the BRI, there would invariably be a need to create a series of bi and multilateral agreements with various members in order to gain the necessary access to their airspace. In the short-term this would likely be restricted to the constraints of the 9 Freedoms of the Sky, in which China could ask the various governments in question to approve the likes of Freedoms 5, 7, 8 and 9; essentially, the right to operate flights, as a non-local carrier, both domestically and internationally in the BRI (without always needing to originate or terminate in China). In theory, it should be an easy sell, with the greater regional connectivity being complemented by China’s vastly more modern, efficient and comfortable aircraft, which the region would otherwise not have any sort of scaled access to. In turn, a successful implementation could ultimately lead to an even more profound opportunity for China and the BRI, being that of an Open Skies Agreement within the region. Inherently, there would be multiple geopolitical barriers to overcome in order to achieve such an outcome, but the benefits of the concept are plain to see. With open access to one another’s’ skies, thereby creating a scope to scale aviation to unseen levels in the region, the propensity for regional development, employment generation, trade, tourism and improved social-economic relations would be substantial. In turn, with aviation becoming the 3rd core pillar of China’s epochal project, a rebranded Belt, Road & Runway Initiative could be set in motion.
- Daniel Bloch
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