OBOR project should not be seen as geo-strategic tool: China

China today said the One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR) put forward by President Xi should not be seen as a "geo-strategic tool".

The annual session of the Chinese Communist Party is currently underway in Beijing with a number of key decisions on the anvil, the most important among them could be the lifting of term limit for presidents which would pave the way for President's Xi to be at the helm for over a decade, possibly for life.

The One Belt, One Road(OBOR) project has been President Xi's primary foreign policy initiative which seeks to create rail and road network from Asia to Europe in order boost trade, however, several countries including India have raised objections to the project which it says infringes upon its territorial sovereignty, an allegation which China denies.

"Five years ago, President Xi Jinping put forward the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the past five years, thanks to joint efforts from all parties, this initiative is being turned into actions from a concept, and it is being translated into reality from a vision," said Zhang Yesui, the Chinese spokesman said.

"Actually, a lot of progress has been made, for example, infrastructure connectivity building has yielded a lot of early harvests, policy communication is going deeper, cooperation mechanisms are being strengthened, and collaboration on the ground is unfolding across the board," Zhang added.

China has already concluded large-scale deals in the Indian sub-continent with Pakistan, Nepal including the Maldives to ensure a continued thrust even as India has raised objections to the deal.

"To say that the Belt and Road Initiative is a geo-strategic tool, in my view, this is a misinterpretation of the initiative," Zhang said. 

"All these concrete results are successful examples, they fully demonstrate that the Belt and Road Initiative has really responded the trend for win-win cooperation, and the shared aspiration for common development," Zhang declared.