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Can America’s answer to China’s massive belt and road really make an impact at Apec?
- The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation – soon to be renamed and armed with twice the funding – will be central to vice-president Mike Pence’s keynote speech at the summit on Saturday
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In November last year, the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) – America’s little-known state-run development finance institution – was on the budgetary chopping block along with 61 other agencies President Donald Trump was hoping to eliminate.
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But in a dramatic about-face, OPIC – soon to be renamed and armed with twice the funding – is set to be front and centre of US Vice-President Mike Pence’s highly anticipated keynote speech on Saturday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Papua New Guinea.
Going by Washington’s efforts to tee up the address in recent weeks, Pence is poised to describe OPIC as a key plank of American efforts to counter China’s trillion-dollar overseas infrastructure building spree, commonly known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
Pence’s speech will delve into America’s plan for a “free and open Indo-Pacific strategy”, a phrase geopolitical observers say is a euphemism for a policy of containing China.
Briefings from US officials and an op-ed by the vice-president himself in The Washington Post last weekend all suggest development financing will dominate Pence’s Apec speech.
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