China’s ‘Silk Road of Health’ Seeks Soft Power in South Asia, Experts Say

Tedros Adhanom (L), Director General of the World Health Organization, shakes hands with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on Jan. 28, 2020. Naohiko Hatta/Pool/Getty Images

NEW DELHI—A quadrilateral meeting hosted by China in the middle of this year with Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan sought to promote a Chinese-led “Silk Road of Health” during the pandemic, rebranding the regime’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the region, according to a new analysis released on Nov. 12.

“It is certainly going to increase the vulnerabilities and dependencies,” Abhinav Pandya, CEO of Usanas Foundation, an India-based geopolitical think tank, told The Epoch Times. “In fact, I would say that these three countries have already accepted China as some kind of a major regional player, if not world power or superpower, but definitely as some kind of a very potent factor in South Asia.”