The United States and its allies are working to expand the availability of high-quality infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
A small town on Sri Lanka’s southern coast has become something of a global lighthouse. Sitting in the Indian Ocean, Hambantota serves as a warning about the hazards of China’s global infrastructure push, which could make small economies dependent even while helping them develop. It also reveals the challenges that India, Japan and others, including the United States, face in mounting an effective response.
In pursuit of a robust strategic partnership, India and Japan are broadcasting their desire to work together far beyond South Asia, with an emphasis on Africa. Their vision for an Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) lacks detail, but still offers an opportunity to raise both countries’ profile in a strategic continent. To compete with China’s presence there, however, India and Japan will have to show that they are committed to the continent and that they can deliver not just on quality but also on speed.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in is today starting a four-day state visit to China that could be a major opportunity to improve strained bilateral relations amid intense concern about North Korea’s nuclear program.
As Asia’s infrastructure competition unfolds, interest in how infrastructure investment is carried out has been rising. China’s Belt & Road Initiative, which aspires to connect nearly two-thirds of the global population and 60 percent of its GDP, along with other infrastructure initiatives across the region have raised the premium on understanding different approaches.
“Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played,” the late Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote two decades ago. His words ring true again as a massive infrastructure competition unfolds across the Eurasian supercontinent. If the roads, railways, and other connections that are emerging today shift flows of goods, people, and ideas, the long-term implications could be profound. This collection includes essays from our Big Questions series, in which leading experts examine this potentially epochal shift.