For many decades, the West made India believe it was headed for success simply because it adopted a Western economic model that allowed Western countries to benefit in different ways. Its best brains troop to the West for jobs while its medics comprise a huge percentage of medical personnel in countries like Britain. All this while the health system back in India suffers from lack of trained personnel. Today, the difference between India and China is like that of night and day. To this day, India still harbors the illusion that it is the production alternative to China even though it is 100 yrs behind China in terms of production technology and capacity.
True, the new silk road will benefit Chinese manufacturing. At the same time, it will also benefit many consumers in hitherto remote parts of the world. A huge chunk of the global population has missed out on the benefits of global trade just because of poor transport infrastructure. For instance, it is irrational to expect a farmer in Kenya to pay five times what a US farmer pays for the same piece of equipment imported from China. With good transport infrastructure, the Kenyan farmer can enjoy prices similar to those enjoyed by Americans.