China’s Belt & Road Initiative: economic prosperity or hegemony?
By James Harvey The Chinese economic and trade initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), is billed as a global initiative and development strategy launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping to invest enormous amounts of capital in infrastructure improvements in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, Europe, and the Maritime counterparts. Economic Prosperity: Chinese President Xi Jinping backs this plan and there are no set term limits on Xi or the BRI. There is no clear definition of what constitutes a BRI country or project. Everything from a Trump-affiliated theme park in Indonesia to a jazz camp in Chongqing have been branded Belt and Road. Any project anywhere can evidently become part of the BRI To this point, the initiative has spilled over the stated claims to bridge Asia and Europe economics and trade, to the point where there are over 60 infrastructure and other projects in action or planned in the 71 included countries, to date. Recently, the Republic of Panama has entered into the BRI orbit as a Chinese-built deepwater megaport project ($1Bn) in the port city of Colon was announced. The same consortium will build a new bridge($1.42Bn) over the Panama Canal. The goal is the building of Chinese dominance on the world economic stage and military parity with the United States. The Belt and Road Initiative is estimated to cost more than $1tn (£760bn), although the estimates differ as to how much money has been spent to date. Read the full article
