Raffaello Pantucci

Opinion | Why the West’s attacks on China’s Belt and Road Initiative are futile

China’s infrastructure initiative has attracted criticism and inspired a cacophony of competing plans, including the G20’s economic corridor

But fundamental needs are getting lost in the rush to conjure up new visions, which has added to global tensions – without denting the belt and road’s popularity

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Raffaello Pantucci

Published: 5:30am, 21 Sep 2023Updated: 5:56am, 21 Sep 2023

A decade after its announcement in Kazakhstan, China’s Belt and Road Initiative continues to dominate international conversation. At the recent G20 summit in New Delhi, a push to create a new corridor from India to Europe via the Middle East – touted by US President Joe Biden as “a big deal” – was widely seen as a counter to China’s infrastructure initiative.

Yet the new corridor would cross routes already considered part of the belt and road and has created tensions among Group of 20 members. The race to tout new routes and connectivity continues to generate spurious comparisons while missing the actual impact (if any) of the projects.

President Xi Jinping’s speeches in Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013 set in motion a global rush to conjure up new visions for connectivity. From the United States and G7-driven Build Back Better World to the European Union’s Global Gateway, a growing number of proposals have been thrown up in an effort to reclaim the narrative of international connectivity.

China was not the first country to put forward the concept of infrastructure connectivity. In 1993, the EU linked up with newly independent countries across the Caucasus and Central Asia to create the Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia. The Asian Development Bank also has the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Programme to foster connectivity between China and its Eurasian neighbours.

Going back further, the idea of an “Iron Silk Road” was first posited in the 1960s through the United Nations to create a rail link from Singapore to Turkey.

But it is the Belt and Road Initiative that is animating things now, largely because of the vast sums of money involved and the grand concepts put forward by China. It is also because the initiative is interpreted as a keynote Chinese offering at a time of geopolitical conflict with the West. And it continues to find receptive audiences in the developing world.