In an alternative world, it is an intriguing possibility. A series of stripped-down regional infrastructure projects to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the trillion-dollar program of ‘New Silk Road’ superhighways, connecting the country with Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.
But in reality, this proposed plan by Australia, the United States, India and Japan is starting to resemble a “threat” to the world’s second-biggest economy’s ambitions of increasing its global footprint.
As news leaked out about the blueprint from a senior US official in the influential Australian Financial Review, Beijing immediately viewed it as an attempt to counter its spreading influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Before leaving for a trip to the United States for a meeting with the US President Donald Trump in Washington, the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tried to put the project into perspective.
Asked about the scheme, he blamed the media for always looking at issues as if they were Cold War-style rivalries. “That’s not the way we see the region,” he told Sky TV.
Even Tokyo played down the big four’s Belt and Road 2 project. Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, pointed out that it was normal for the group to regularly exchange views on issues of mutual interest.
“It is not the case that this is to counter China’s Belt and Road,” he said.
But in practice, when Prime Minister Turnbull goes to the White House on Friday, China will have a prominent place on the agenda.
The Australian PM has already talked about the need for “trillions of dollars of additional infrastructure investment” in the region, which could be interpreted as a direct challenge to the ‘New Silk Road’ scheme.
Naturally, this could involve the 11 members of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trading bloc of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, even though the US pulled out of the TPP under President Trump.
Prime Minister Turnbull will also try to balance the Washington administration’s ‘America First’ dictum with his commitment to strong economic ties with China. After all, the US is the single largest destination for Australian overseas investment, worth US$482 billion, and its most important ally.
“Australian firms lead the world with infrastructure financing and management – examples include Macquarie, Lendlease, Transurban and IFM,” Professor Simon Jackman, CEO of the United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney, told the BBC.
“Part of Australia’s agenda in Washington will be to not only export a policy model but to create investment opportunities,” he added.
‘Belt and Road 2’ would also fit nicely into those parameters and complement Japan and India’s skill sets in technology, IT and steel production, key building blocks for major infrastructure development.
But for China, this is seen as a direct rival to its ‘New Silk Road’ program, which was rolled out by President Xi Jinping in 2013, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.
Predictably, the specter of the US looms large in the country’s state-owned media when dealing with Belt and Road 2 coverage.
“It is normal to understand why the US leads other nations to find ‘alternatives’ to the Belt and Road, since the US has always considered it a challenge to its power in the [world],” Xu Liping, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the conservative Global Times.
“The US is the only country with experience of wielding strategic influence at a global level. The US is concerned that China would do the same due to the Belt and Road Initiative’s broad coverage. It is an effort by the US to maintain its global power, and not to lose its alliance,” Xu added.
Yet despite the rhetoric, the project is likely to produce economic benefits for a region which is desperate to upgrade its infrastructure. In the end, two Belt and Roads might be better than one.
Read: Talk of four-nation-led ‘alternative’ to Belt and Road picks up steam
Warships have little cargo space. The US cannot even maintain its own infrastructure. There’s no bullet train between Boston and Miami, let alone between New York, Chicago, and Seattle.
Japan and Australia, junior partners? You are being too nice. I would say one is America’s puppy, the other is America’s protectoriate.
There is another way to look at this alternative plan and that is to loo at talent and motive of the major players. Let me start with India.
India is at the center of South Asia whose combined population (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka) is around 1 billion 700 million and represents one of the populated regions on the planet.
-For the last 70 years New Delhi has spent little on infrastructure. So little that her infrastructural problems are one of the wors on the planet., among them is a population of 700 million who have no access to toilets.
-SAARC which is South Asia’s regional organization has done next to nothing when it comes to projects like China’s silk roads. It is dominated by New Delhi’s caustic policies against other SAARC members.
-India’s main foreign policy goal, measured by the amount of money invested, is for war or her military capacity against China. That is about it. To include India in such a project shows the insincerity of its goal.
-America and MAGA (Make America Great Again) focuses on set of policies that are place the interests of America first including a wall, anti immigration, protectionism in trade etc. That is exactly counter to China’s silk roads. Even America’s Marshal Plan that rebuilt Europe and Japan after world war 2 was mainly for American Corporations to repair the markets that bought their products.
The "America First" policy does the opposite. It works against other economies for the benefit of America’s economy.
By and large Australia and Japan are non issues without America’s largess.
The writer Gordon Watts made up a fake story about an imaginary second alternative that does not exist at all, except in his delusion of how to stop China with fake stories.
US under Trump’s agenda is "America first", Australia and Japan are two junior partners, and India is trying to play catch-up with China. Each has their own agenda and motives. So it will take a while to see these four actors figure out what their BRI will look like.
It is time to destroy the PetroDollar. Let us get it otganised starting with Russia-China-Iran. Good thing is it is already up and running.
Once the big satan runs out of easy printing of the Dollar, all things will just crumble.
Just mark put this US sheriff in Asia – Oozii. We shall remeber it.
Chinese are NOT against it. But we know it is just a cover for a concerted military alliance to counter it.
Chinese are not stupid.
Don’t camouflage your jealousy and ill intention. Say it loud that you are jesalous and fearful of the BRI.
Well, we can understand your stand. Just the same, we give the West our middle fingers on your value systems such as human rights, demon-crazy, Christianity, two-party Westminstwer system, and your World Order with your IMF, World Bank, World Court, UN Arbitration kangaroo court etc.
Another sad stupid and pathetic nincompoop
how can you write an entire article about the West creating an alternative to the belt and road of China without mentioning any details to what the West is proposing? It mustn’t be a very good alternative if it’s not even worth mentioning, knowing Malcolm Turnbull and how he wants to turn Australia into an arms exporter it will not be as good as what China is proposing.
Only fools believe Trump the American first president with dilapidated infrastructure at home, willing to fork out money to the little brown brother in the third world for their infrastructure.
Galen Linder All they have to do is follow China’s strategy: Loan the money to the target country; Bid the job with your country subsidized vendors; Help only countries that have something to offer in trade that benefits you; Negotiate bilateral trade deals in such a way that you end up with a trade surplus; Require payment in gold or dollars. Require acknowledgement of US territorial claims.
Gordon Watts,
The world should be replete with roads and belts and not walls. And competition brings the costs down for the developing nations. No one can disagree with consumers having choices to choose from, whether quality or quantity.
But please stop this false rhetoric of China being ‘frosty’ in the headlines and ‘Beijing immediately viewed it as an attempt to counter its spreading influence in the Asia-Pacific region.’ Show the evidence! Which Chinese Government official say things to this effect?
You only demean yourself and show that you are just a paid unprofessional backyard ghost writer of the Yanks. Show the proof or else just stick to writing comics.
China’s Belt and Road Inititative is a coherent strategy with built-in logical consistency:
1. China has inisisted that BRI is inclusive and collaborative in nature. It is not an exclusive club. Everyone is welcome to join and contribute to the initiative. If Austrialia, the US, Japan or India want to join the show, they’re welcome to contribute funding, expertise to enhance and complement the initiative. So unless this alternative BRI is mean to disrupt and imede the original BRI, what’s the big deal?
2. The infrastructure developed under China’s BRI is open to access and use by anyone, not just limited to Chinese. So what is the basis of this so-called alternative BRI?
3. Truth be told, China’s BRI will naturally benefit the countries along Belt and Road and China the most. This is because geography, but it also because China has the funds, comprehensive infrastructure building capabilities and experiences, as well as the industrial capabilities that will benefit the countries and China most. None of the four countries can compete with China alone or even as a group to support an alternative BRI. Australia is a resource export economy, is it going to invest in central Aisan countries to help them with their natural resource development to compete with itself? Inda itself has huge needs of infrastructure, it can hardly contribute anything else other than foot-dragging China’s BRI around its neighours. Japan has expertise, technologies and some funds, but it will not benefit a lot from these infrastruce that much, at least compared with China, due to its geographical location. It would have to throw money aound alomsot purely for geopolitical purposes. Plus, it can not hope to match with China’s resources. The US? Other than bombing and killing, in other words, destruction, what else can they bring to the table of this so-called alternative BRI, given its own huge deficits and depserate infrastructure needs at home?
So this so-called alternative BRI is just another dreamer, at best a distraction from China’s BRI. It is bound to fail.
Interesting the USA and China are pursuing completely opposite strategies. The USA wants to build a wall and isolate itself. China wants to amplify it’s linkage with Eurasia and the world.
once the quad inept realize China is not even remotely shaken up by the proposal.. they will look for other trees to bark off.
So, US is putting forth $1 trillion for BRI 2?
During cold war days, super powers scurried to provide aids to developing countries as tactics to win political favor. Developing countries played both sides to extract as much economic benefits as possible (along with corruption haul-offs, of course). That was the name of the game. Now it appears super powers are competing against each other to build ‘infrastructures’ in developing countries as the new strategy. It is a good thing for global economic development. Let the pieces fall as they may and see who ends up accomplishing more, efficiently and effectively. My betting money is not on the US/Japan/Australia/India cabal.
Global infrastructures are conducive to economic growth. As developing countries gain in wellbeings they gain parity with rich nations and shed their inferiority status. That’s not what the empire aspires to. We shall see how the empire eats its own foot.
Hahaha now they are tired of wars and regime changes and want to trade to properity . Hope the copy cat can catch the mice not killing them.
So true… vast budget deficits severely restrict US contributions to development projects except as fast Predatory investments