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China’s belt and road plan: can the US find an alternative route?
- US President Joe Biden is keen for democracies to create a rival infrastructure development initiative, but observers say he’ll struggle to pull it off
- Previous efforts by Washington and its allies have been ‘sporadic and disaggregated in terms of their strategic coherence’, academic says
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The US and its allies are keen to develop an alternative to China’s global infrastructure development strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative but observers say they may struggle to bring it to fruition.
US President Joe Biden said in March he had spoken to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about democratic nations developing a rival programme.
“I suggested we should have a similar initiative, pulling from the democratic states, helping those communities around the world that need help,” he said.
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China’s plan, launched in 2013 and championed by President Xi Jinping, aims to connect Asia, Africa and Europe via a network of ports, bridges, railways and other infrastructure, primarily financed by Beijing.
The US and Japan have tried to increase infrastructure investment with support from the Asian Development Bank, and under former president Donald Trump, the US revamped its Overseas Private Investment Corporation in a bid to provide belt and road style financing.
In 2019, the US launched a private sector led infrastructure development scheme in the Indo-Pacific region called the Blue Dot Network. That followed the European Union’s 2018 announcement of its Connecting Europe with Asia strategy.
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