51吃瓜

The US Senate recently demonstrated that the only adhesive capable of uniting the two parties is a good, old-fashioned enemy. Although the Democrats and Republicans continue to bicker over the Biden administration鈥檚 infrastructure legislation, they achieved rare accord in  a major technology bill that directs investment into key sectors of the economy.

Why the sudden bipartisanship? China. The $250 billion investment into semiconductor production, scientific research, space exploration and the like is intended to decrease dependency on inputs from China and maintain a US lead in critical technologies.

Does the World Need to Contain China?

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The Biden administration is now eager to replicate that experience on the global level. At last week鈥檚 G7 summit in the UK, the United States again used China as a threat to forge transnational solidarity around a global infrastructure deal. Despite some misgivings from Germany and Italy, President Joe Biden managed to steer the group toward something called the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative, which incidentally sounds a lot like Biden鈥檚 2020 campaign slogan. But that slogan itself echoed a catchphrase adopted by the UN in 2015 to characterize its response to humanitarian disasters. So, B3W can sound both authentically multilateral and distinctively Bidenesque at the same time.

In the face of the global tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change 鈥� not to mention the sustained attacks by Donald Trump and other right-wing populists on the global order 鈥� it was entirely appropriate for the G7 to come up with a bold approach to addressing global economic inequities in a sustainable manner. Alas, B3W raises as many questions as it addresses.

For instance, is B3W more than just a fancy name attached to already committed financing and existing institutions like the Blue Dot Network? Isn鈥檛 the World Bank supposed to be closing the infrastructure gap between the have-lots and the have-littles? And shouldn鈥檛 China be a collaborator in this effort rather than its chief antagonist?

Improving Upon Belt and Road?

China launched its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. Its aim has been thoroughly Keynesian: to pump money into the economies on China鈥檚 borders 鈥� as well as some further away 鈥� in order to sustain China鈥檚 own economic growth. The more these economies are dependent on Chinese financing, Chinese inputs and Chinese know-how, the more they will ultimately contribute to China鈥檚 global economic dominance.

Is China creating some kind of global alternative to capitalism like the Soviet Union鈥檚 old Comecon? No, Beijing is thoroughly capitalist in its orientation, though it pushes a version that rubs many laissez-faire purists the wrong way.

Is China determined to use BRI to consolidate an anti-democratic bloc of nations? Although Beijing may well prefer to deal with more predictable partners 鈥� and democracies can elect some pretty outrageous wildcards 鈥� it is ultimately agnostic about the political governance of its BRI collaborators. There are  participating in the BRI, including 18 countries in the European Union. For every Belarus and Cuba, there鈥檚 an Estonia and a Chile.

Well, then, isn鈥檛 China using BRI to build a kind of covert military bloc? Critics, for instance, have pointed to the deal China negotiated with Sri Lanka around the port it helped to finance in Hambantota. Struggling with loan repayments in 2017, Sri Lanka signed a 99-year lease arrangement with a Chinese firm. Couldn鈥檛 Beijing now turn this port into a military base?

In fact, Sri Lanka  to own the facility, though the Chinese commercial firm operates much of the port and thus gets much of the profit. Despite US government , China is not and doesn鈥檛 seem to have any intention of conducting military business at Hambantota. Two Chinese subs entered the port before the 2017 deal, and Sri Lanka has  such visits ever since.

The Sri Lankan example has often been used as exhibit A in the case of China鈥檚 use of the 鈥渄ebt trap鈥� to advance its global objectives. According to this scenario, Beijing extends loans through BRI, the target country defaults, and China grabs the assets. It sounds plausible. Except that there鈥檚 no  that China actually operates that way, including in the Sri Lankan case.

The Belt and Road Initiative has many flaws, to be sure. It has facilitated large-scale corruption, for instance, in . It has promoted , including 240 coal projects and billions of dollars in oil and gas investments.

But it鈥檚 not as if China is the only country with dirty hands. Corruption is endemic in infrastructure projects, accounting for as much as 45% of costs. And when it comes to fossil fuels, the US was the largest oil  in the world last year as well as the fourth-largest exporter of .

So, why did the G7 think it was so important to come up with an alternative to China鈥檚 Belt and Road rather than work with Beijing to build back better together?

Beat 鈥榚m Rather than Join 鈥榚m?

The United States likes being number one. The success of Trump鈥檚 political campaign and his various hyperbolic slogans testify to the endurance of American exceptionalism. The stridency of these exceptionalist claims, however, introduces a measure of doubt. Front-runners who are anxious about their status generally compensate by raising their voices and thumping their chests harder. In this way, we betray our simian origins.

China has challenged the US status by growing what is now, measured by purchasing power parity, the world鈥檚 largest economy. Thanks to its performance in 2020 during the pandemic, China will likely become the world鈥檚 undisputed number one economy sometime 2026.

But China is also challenging the global economy by establishing its own institutions parallel to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The BRI, by encompassing so much of the world, is just the kind of grand initiative that number-one economies set up to maintain their dominance.

The United States is not so enthusiastic about relinquishing its top status. Ditto all the countries that have hitched themselves to the US economic locomotive. With Trump out of the White House, Washington has eschewed machismo in favor of multilateral and moral arguments against the Belt and Road Initiative: China is throwing developing countries into debt dependency; China is bolstering the power of authoritarian leaders; China is fostering unacceptable work environments including forced labor.

Those criticisms ring hollow. The developing world is already in debt dependency to the G7 and its financial institutions. The World Bank and IMF worked closely with dictators for decades. Western corporations long turned a blind eye to horrifying working conditions in the countries where they set up operations.

And the $40 trillion infrastructure gap between have-lots and have-littles that B3W is supposed to bridge? It鈥檚 because of this gap that China was so successful in reaching out to the Global South in the first place. In charge of the global economy since 1945, the richest countries failed miserably to achieve a modicum of global economic equity 鈥� because that was never really their goal.

But Can It Help?

For the sake of argument, let鈥檚 put all this history aside. Regardless of the mixed intentions of its backers, can B3W actually help countries that want to catch up to the rest of the world in a way that doesn鈥檛 further accelerate the climate crisis?

The experience of the Blue Dot Network is not encouraging. Established by Japan, Australia and the US in 2019 鈥� after a series of failed infrastructure initiatives like the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor and the Trilateral Partnership 鈥� the Blue Dot Network  a Good Housekeeping seal of approval for infrastructure deals that meet more stringent requirements around governance, finance, labor conditions and the like. But here鈥檚 the problem: The Blue Dot Network doesn鈥檛 actually provide credit-hungry countries with access to any new pots of money.

B3W looks like it might be a similar example of grand rhetoric and few resources. It is articulating the same kind of criteria for investments as the Blue Dot Network. As for the financing, the G7 has promised to mobilize private sector funding 鈥� in other words, they aren鈥檛 ponying up any money of their own. This is no surprise. The Biden administration is hard-pressed to pass its own domestic infrastructure bill. Fat chance it can get Republicans on board to send similarly earmarked funds abroad, even under the rubric of challenging China.

Nevertheless, the White House is : 鈥淏3W will collectively catalyze hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries in the coming years.鈥� The word 鈥渃atalyze鈥� sounds very dynamic, but frankly, it鈥檚 just a fancy way of saying: We will beg and wheedle and maybe twist an arm or two, but frankly we can鈥檛 promise much of anything. As Reuters wryly  in its article on the initiative, 鈥淚t was not immediately clear how exactly the plan would work or how much capital it would ultimately allocate.鈥�

The bottom line is that the world desperately needs a green B3W. It needs to find a way to close the infrastructure gap by providing the funds and financing for the developing world to leapfrog into a clean energy future. At the moment, the Belt and Road Initiative does not do that. And neither does B3W.

So, how about it, Washington and Beijing? Why not get together to see if you can turn two wrongs into a right and collaborate on a global Green New Deal?

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.