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.
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.
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.
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.