Opinion | The US can turn the Belt and Road Initiative to its own advantage. Here’s how

Karl Friedhoff says while the US cannot compete with China on the Belt and Road Initiative in infrastructure building, it must capitalise on its strengths – by coordinating with its allies to develop services in Southeast Asia

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Girls dance at a graduation ceremony held at Mitthaphab School in Oudomxay Province, Laos. The school, founded in 2006, teaches both Chinese and Laotian. As China’s infrastructure spending in Southeast Asian nations grows, the US could ramp up its provision of education, health and finance services in the region. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 2:00am, 26 Jul 2018Updated: 6:48am, 26 Jul 2018

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has created widespread hand-wringing in the United States. Concern over China’s political and economic goals in target countries has prompted calls for Washington to compete with, or offer an alternative to, the programme. Neither of these approaches are feasible.

Instead, the US, and its allies and partners, should seek to co-opt the infrastructure funded and built by China to project US strengths throughout the region. Road and rail may get people and goods from place to place, but the longer-term value remains in building services, equipping those services and training domestic populations in their sustainable operation: build, equip, train (BET).

Much of the coming US-China competition for influence will play out in Southeast Asia. The most recent US national security strategy identified the region as the centre of gravity by identifying the Indo-Pacific as a key pillar in US strategy. Militarily, competition and tension is on the rise in the South China Sea.

Economically, the region is on the upswing. By 2020, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations states will collectively be world’s fifth largest economy. These factors will bring China and the US into increasing contact along all dimensions of national power – diplomatic, informational, military and economic.

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