G7 leaders unveiled an initiative to support global infrastructure, launched as China’s Belt and Road Initiative pulls back. To succeed, the United States and its partners must design incentives that mobilize private capital and appeal to leaders in the developing world.
Jonathan Hillman discusses the true cost of China’s Belt and Road investments for developing countries, the U.S. role in enabling a global alternative, and lessons from his travels to China’s overseas projects in this episode of CSIS’ Building the Future Podcast with Dan Runde.
View Reconnecting Asia’s Map and database which track infrastructure projects across the supercontinent of Eurasia.
Covid-19 has boosted Asia-Europe rail freight traffic during 2020, as Chinese exports have soared amid the global economic slowdown. However, it remains to be seen if the surge in traffic and rise of emerging routes will endure after the pandemic recedes.
As many developed economies restrict Huawei from their 5G networks, developing economies are still welcoming the Chinese tech champion into the center of their government operations. The CSIS Reconnecting Asia Project identified 70 deals in 41 countries between Huawei and foreign governments or state-owned enterprises (SOEs) for cloud infrastructure and e-government services.
Apply for CSIS’ Master’s-level introduction to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The course will explain what the BRI is, what it is not, and how it is impacting commercial and strategic realities on the ground.
Small and medium economies of the Indo-Pacific are looking to build critical infrastructure now to meet their economic demands. The U.S., Australia, and Japan can capitalize on this unique moment in the Indo-Pacific’s development, but they need to prioritize addressing the remaining barriers to public-private infrastructure partnerships.