Positive results trump politics of competition
Concerns over rising Chinese influence mar pioneering efforts for development
US President Joe Biden has been vocal about intensifying competition with China, declaring that the United States is in “the strongest position in decades to compete with China”.
A focal point of contention is the China-led Belt and Road Initiative, which has elicited a spectrum of reactions globally.
Some see it as a pioneering effort toward global development, while others view it as a strategic move by China to expand its geopolitical influence. What are the forces behind the competition and what is at stake?
Projects like the one in Santa Cruz are very important for us to reach a new level on our production of energy.”
Ramiro Ordoqui, former undersecretary for economic negotiations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Argentina, on BRI hydropower project
Hydropower boost
Argentina has been attempting to harness the hydroelectric power of Santa Cruz to address a shortage of energy in the country for decades.
The development of the BRI Nestor Kirchner-Jorge Cepernic power stations in Santa Cruz is expected to boost the country’s development by about 6.5 percent and save up to $1.1 billion annually, even enabling electricity exports to neighboring countries.
Despite uplifting news for Argentina, Western media fervently attacked the project, casting it as China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative buying influence in America’s backyard.
“Projects like the one in Santa Cruz are very important for us to reach a new level on our production of energy,” said Ramiro Ordoqui, the former undersecretary for economic negotiations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Argentina.
He said he was not worried that Argentina will become too reliant on China, arguing that China offered Argentina a win-win move.
China-US relations have become a dominant factor in the US view of the BRI. As perception of a threat from China has grown dramatically from Barack Obama’s first presidential term to his second to Donald Trump’s administration, and subsequently to Biden’s, the BRI has attracted growing attention as well as attacks.
In a hearing in 2018, Dan Coats, then-director of national intelligence, claimed that China built its geopolitical advantages worldwide through the Belt and Road Initiative.
In response to the momentum the BRI gained, the Trump administration launched a war of narratives against the BRI, which continued in the Biden administration. “Obama and Trump and Biden have, each in their own way, tried to do what they think was necessary to safeguard US interests,” said Daniel Russel, former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Critics argue that the belligerent attitude toward the BRI has come at US cost. “The US is probably right now the worst in terms of this massive anti-China propaganda. They become victims for this kind of propaganda that wants to define China as a threat,” said Stephen Brawer, chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden.
The US has proposed alternatives to the BRI, from the Trump administration’s Blue Dot Network, to Biden’s Build Back Better framework. But the effectiveness and commitment behind these moves remain subjects of scrutiny.
“Every year, they come up with another acronym like the PGII, then the B3W, the thing that doesn’t actually even make sense in English,” said Tings Chak, a researcher at the think tank Tricontinental.
“They are trying to talk about building back a better world ... when they can’t even maintain their own bridges,” she said.
Explaining the narrative
Arnaud Bertrand is a long-time observer of China-US relations and a social media influencer. He shared his candid observations about why the West attacks the BRI.
“Our own population doesn’t know anything basically about this country.” He said the West has lived in an information cocoon that Western media create to get people scared about China.
Faced with accusations about how he was receiving Chinese money for speaking up for China, he clarified that the only people who have paid him to give a speech or write articles are Americans.
Douglas Paal, a former US diplomat and a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expressed the same concern, “People who try to explain what is going on in China are often seen as apologizing for China rather than explaining China”.
Choosing cooperation
Seeking out a path of cooperation rather than confrontation remains a formidable challenge. Yan Xuetong, a professor at Tsinghua University, compared ChinaUS relations to a football game. He said the result is not which side is being killed, but who gets more scores.
As the world grapples with the complexities of these developments, the underlying message proposed by the BRI is loud and clear: the path forward suggested by the BRI requires not confrontation but constructive dialogue and cooperation. Amid the geopolitical chess game, the ultimate goal should be to champion a stable, peaceful and prosperous global community, transcending the binary of good versus bad and embracing a more nuanced understanding of international relations. The BRI offers such a way, analysts said.