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Asia has wary welcome for G7’s answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
- The Build Back Better World initiative (B3W) was promoted the recent G7 summit but remains light on details and isn’t expected to become a reality for some years
- A challenge for B3W will be matching the speed at which China has been able to engage developing economies in the region
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A plan by the Group of Seven (G7) nations to counter Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative has been welcomed by countries in China’s immediate orbit of influence, but will need to overcome doubts about Western commitment to emerging market projects.
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The Build Back Better World initiative, or (B3W), was promoted at last week’s G7 summit in Britain but remains light on details and is not expected to become a reality for some years.
The push, however, is seen as a challenge by the world’s richest democracies to China’s growing influence in developing economies, using infrastructure investment.
Southeast Asian countries that have hosted BRI projects … often did so because of the ease with which such deals have been struck in the past
While Asian governments say they are open to working with developed nations to meet their growing infrastructure needs, a challenge for B3W will be matching the speed at which China has been able to engage developing economies in the region.
Choi Shing Kwok, director of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said Southeast Asian nations are wary of overdependence on China, creating a potential opening for B3W when it eventually arrives.
At the same time, B3W’s multilateral nature would make it a more complex and potentially slower moving initiative than BRI.
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“Southeast Asian countries that have hosted BRI projects, they often did so because of the ease with which such deals have been struck in the past,” Choi said. “It isn’t because of any ideological or geopolitical reasons.”
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