G7 Counter to China’s BRI: Too Little, Too Late

Smattering of projects pales in the face of Beijing’s vast infrastructure investment

Jun 29

The launch of a potential “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment” by Washington, announced at the Group of Seven countries meeting in Bavaria over the past weekend as an antidote to China’s massive Belt and Road initiative, seems too little and too late.

In a prepared release from the meeting, the G7 – made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, said it “intends to compete with China by launching a global infrastructure initiative” as an alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative rolled out by China in 2013 to open up new trade routes to Europe, Africa, Latin America and in Asia.

“Together, we aim to mobilize almost 600 billion dollars by 2027 through the G7,” said US President Joe Biden, “It is an investment that will pay off for everyone, including the American people and the people in all our countries, and will boost all our economies. The initiative is designed to target low- and middle-income countries, the goal being infrastructural investments “that countries need without being dictated to from outside.”

There is nothing the White House detailed that comes anywhere near the scope of China’s BRI, and it is doubtful it would be able to do so anytime soon given the dysfunction of the US Congress, which has stymied almost all of Biden’s domestic infrastructure funding plans and not long ago featured an attempt by ultraconservative Republicans to kill the US Ex-Im Bank, which serves as the major funding source to aid US companies involved in overseas projects. By contrast, Beijing has smoothly meshed its overseas project funding by its Big Four banks…