‘The building of roads, railways, ports, and power plants is giving way to a BRI centered on technology—primarily telecommunications, connectivity, health care, and financial services.’
- ‘If the Belt & Road meets little competition or resistance, Beijing could become the hub of global trade, set important technical standards that would disadvantage non-Chinese companies, lock countries into carbon-intensive power generation, have greater influence over countries’ political decisions, and acquire more power-projection capabilities for its military,’ says a new analysis from the Council on Foreign Relations.
A Council Task Force has just published the 190-page ‘China’s Belt and Road: Implications for the United States.’
- This the first from a major think tank to consider the BRI in a post-pandemic world and how the U.S. should respond.
In this issue of China Macro Commentary, I have focused just on the ‘Digital Silk Road’ and how it supports the business expansion of Chinese tech companies, and on BRI ‘connectivity’ projects: ports (China is involved in 93 around the world) and on the growing China-Europe freight trains traffic (This wasn't covered sufficiently in the Report, so I included a recent article from the Wall Street Journal), plus on the U.S.'s failure to meet the BRI challenge.
- That said the entire report is worth your taking some time to browse – the BRI is a lot more than roads and bridges.