China State Railway Group announced on Thursday its plans to double the length of the nation's high-speed rail network to 70,000 km by 2035 at a cost of 4.55 trillion yuan ($42.6 billion), Nikkei reports.
Turkey's Sovereign Wealth Fund is looking to China for investment in a number of major infrastructure projects and to tie Turkey into China's Belt and Road Initiative much more deeply, Nikkei reports.
Bangladesh has described their relationship with China and the Belt & Road Initiative as solely "economic diplomacy," but China's expanding trade and investment in the country also threatens to undermine Indian influence, Nikkei reports.
Pakistan, with the help of a Chinese loan, repaid a $1 billion Saudi loan last week and asked for their support on the Kashmir issue, although Saudi Arabia is reluctant to become entangled in the efforts of Pakistan and China to contain India, Nikkei reports.
Dito, the China Telecom-supported and Huawei-supplied company poised to break up the Philippines telecom duopoly, has had their operation date delayed to January 2021 by the Covid-19 pandemic, as only a quarter of its planned towers have been built, Nikkei reports.
Pakistan's top economic body on Wednesday authorized a $6.8 billion railway upgrade, its costliest project to date as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Nikkei reports.
Following an attack on Pakistan's stock exchange in June, Baloch and Sindhi separatist groups have announced an alliance ostensibly aimed at attacking projects along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a move that is likely to increase security costs for the flagship route of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Nikkei reports.
PLDT, the Philippines' largest telecom company, will launch its 5G mobile service on Thursday using equipment partly supplied by China's Huawei Technologies, Nikkei reports.
Chinese president Xi Jinping proposed on Tuesday to restructure the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) into an inclusive platform for the promotion of international cooperation and multilateralism amid the coronavirus pandemic, Nikkei reports.
China's Huawei Technologies on Monday urged global carriers to continue buying its networking gear to "stay ahead in the 5G race," in response to political pressure from the U.S., UK, France, and Singapore to drop the carrier due to national security concerns, Nikkei reports.
The Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a $100 million loan to a Hanoi-based commercial bank, its first commitment to a Vietnamese bank, Nikkei reports.
World Bank President David Malpass has issued a statement directed at China urging all bilateral creditors to uphold an agreement of the G20 finance ministers to temporarily suspend debt repayments due to the Covid-19 pandemic following allegations that China has secretly reinstated payments for Laos and Angola, Nikkei reports.
A proposed $400B economic and strategic agreement between Iran and China, including a major port development project on the Strait of Hormuz, will invest $280B in Iran's oil and gas industry and $120B in production and transportation infrastructure, Nikkei reports.
Construction of Vietnam's $900 million China-built railway line in Hanoi, Vietnam's first metro line, has been substantially delayed by disagreements between the Vietnamese government and the Chinese company on the project, Nikkei reports.
Public support for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is declining in Belarus amid protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been a proponent of the Chinese initiative, Nikkei reports.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are attempting to put economics at the center of their strategic partnership, but a closer look at four dimensions of China-Russia connectivity reveals a partnership of unequals that will become even more lopsided in the future.
The UK government announced it will ban the purchase of new 5G equipment from the Chinese technology company Huawei as of Dec. 31 this year and remove all Huawei devices from the country's 5G networks by 2027, Nikkei reports.
Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa announced that his government plans to strengthen Chinese investment in the Colombo port, straining relations with India, who was originally authorized to develop and use the new East Container Terminal, Nikkei reports.
China's state-owned and private companies are increasingly dominant across the global maritime supply chain, aided by an opaque system of formal and informal government support that is unrivaled in both its scale and scope.
China, Pakistan and the Kohala Hydropower Company, a subsidiary of China Three Gorges Corporation, have signed a $2.4 billion deal for the construction of a 1,124-megawatt hydropower plant in disputed Kashmir, Nikkei reports.
India's highways minister said on Wednesday the country "will not give permission to joint ventures that have Chinese partners for road construction" following the military clash in the Himalayas, Nikkei reports.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday formally designated China's Huawei and ZTE as threats to U.S. national security, a declaration that bars U.S. firms from tapping an $8.3 billion government fund to purchase equipment from the companies, Nikkei reports.
India has banned 59 Chinese mobile apps citing national security concerns following reports that the apps were illegally transmitting user data to servers outside of India, Nikkei reports.
After meeting with Chinese diplomats in Hawaii, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that "the tide is turning" against Huawei Technologies as some countries, mainly in Europe, are choosing to exclude the Chinese company from their 5G infrastructure, Nikkei reports.
China has completed its Beidou satellite system, its answer to the U.S.-based Global Positioning System (GPS), advancing Beijing's effort to cut its reliance on U.S. technology, Nikkei reports. China has exported Beidou products to 120 countries as part of it's Belt and Road Initiative.
India and China on Tuesday agreed to withdraw from a tense standoff along disputed Himalayan territory that started in response to India's construction activity near the border, Nikkei reports.
A new report released by analytics company Refinitiv on Tuesday showed a 15.6% drop in the number of new BRI projects announced in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period in 2019. The value of the projects slid from $386.08 billion to $137.43 billion over the same period, Nikkei reports.
An Indian Army officer and two soldiers have been killed in a clash with Chinese troops on the countries' disputed Himalayan border, where Indian construction has drawn sharp objections from China for the past month, Nikkei reports.
The Chinese government is expected to endorse a new cryptocurrency backed by a basket of Asian currencies including the digital yuan, marking a new stage in international competition over digital currency adoption, Nikkei reports.
The U.S. Commerce Department announced in May that it will require companies using U.S. technology to supply Huawei or its affiliates to apply for a license, driving U.S. and Chinese technology supply chains further apart and complicating business for the U.S. semiconductor industry, Nikkei reports.
U.S. promises of aid to Nepal have some political officials there worried that such aid could damage the country's blossoming relations with China and its Belt and Road Initiative, Nikkei reports.
The Indonesian government has begun discussions on possible Japanese participation in a planned high-speed railway between Jakarta and Bandung, hoping to spur progress on the delayed Chinese-led project as costs mount, Nikkei reports.
Citing the need to balance economic and national security, Australia announced all foreign investors will face greater scrutiny when bidding for sensitive assets, regardless of the size of the deal and whether the buyer is private or state-owned. Chinese companies have been major investors in Australian resources, agriculture and property, Nikkei reports.
As fifth-generation wireless networks start to go mainstream, competition to develop 6G has begun, with South Korea's Samsung Electronics and China's Huawei Technologies at the forefront, Nikkei reports.
China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouses gases, pledged to cut "carbon intensity" as part of the Paris Pact it signed in 2015. But China may struggle to meet its climate pledges this year as it turns to heavy industry and carbon-intensive projects to shore up its coronavirus-stricken economy, Nikkei reports.
The coronavirus pandemic could have serious impacts on economic growth in Laos, which is already struggling due to significant debt taken on to finance a large range of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, Nikkei reports.
Indonesia plans to extend the tracks of the $6 billion Jakarta-Bandung rail project being built with China to ensure economic viability, but is facing a one year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nikkei reports.
In competing with China, the United States and its democratic allies should place the free flow of data and an open global digital economy at the heart of their strategy.
Indian and Chinese troops are engaged in a military confrontation at the Himalayan border, triggered in part by India's construction of roads and airstrips in response to China's Belt and Road Initiative, Nikkei reports.
Xi Jinping announced at this year's National People's Congress that China will maintain a focus on high tech development in areas such as aerospace and semiconductor manufacture, as well as bolstering their 5G telecommunications infrastructure, Nikkei reports.
While much attention has been focused on economic coercion, inducements have also played an important role in China’s toolkit. Ramping up U.S. efforts at bilateral and multilateral economic engagement would provide more credible or appealing alternatives.
Pakistan has entered a joint contract venture with China to build a dam in Kashmir, increasing the country's financial ties to China and igniting new tensions with India, Nikkei reports.
To counter new U.S. sanctions targeting Huawei's semiconductor chip suppliers, China has invested state funds in domestic chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation to increase self-sufficiency in semiconductor supplies.
Pakistan has outlawed a political party critical of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative, signaling the country's strong ties to Beijing, Nikkei reports.
South Korean conglomerate Samsung is seeking increased cooperation with Huawei on key technology despite U.S. restrictions and security concerns surrounding the Chinese firm, Nikkei reports.
Major developments, including the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s acceleration of its digital infrastructure push, have heightened the stakes of the global infrastructure challenge for U.S. interests and the necessity of fashioning not merely a response, but its own strategy.
Sri Lanka's decision to borrow a further $80 million from Beijing to finance road improvements has drawn criticism due to the country's already high levels of debt to China, Nikkei reports.
In response to economic blacklisting by the U.S. government, Huawei has found alternatives to U.S. sources for many of its technology components and has shifted its supply chains to be more dependent on China, Nikkei reports.
Starting in June, public infrastructure operators in China will undergo a cybersecurity review which could exclude foreign companies from supplying IT equipment, Nikkei reports.
As other countries postpone 5G implementation due to coronavirus, China is closing in on 70 percent of global 5G smartphone contracts, Nikkei reports.