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The View | China’s belt and road project can’t cover Asia’s infrastructure needs by itself, never mind the world’s
Anthony Rowley says while China’s critics fear possible debt traps, they miss the point that only Beijing is taking serious steps to meet infrastructure needs – and even that’s not enough
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Why you can trust SCMP
Critics have stressed that countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative have incurred heavy debts to China. If only a fraction of the attention devoted to alleged shortcomings of the belt and road were directed towards the global infrastructure deficit, these critics might perceive a much bigger challenge.
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China could have done a better job in explaining its vast infrastructure initiative to the outside world. Fortunately, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has produced what seems to be an objective and balanced assessment, in a report that sticks to the “economic aspects of the issue”, and which documents China’s “stated aims” without “second-[guessing] what these might be”.
The report takes as its starting point Chinese President Xi Jinping's statement that “China will promote international cooperation … [to] build a platform for international cooperation to create new drivers of shared development”.
Infrastructure investment, as the document notes, is a key aspect of the belt and road but the initiative “is much broader in its objectives, encompassing all aspects of sustainable growth [for China] and including more balanced regional growth, the upgrading of China's industry and greener growth at home”.
All this involves six land and maritime development “corridors” to be built in East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa, extending also to Europe and even parts of Latin America. Yet, the belt and road cannot begin to match the infrastructure investment needs even of Asia.
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