Geurasia

China's BRI has lifted the Global South

Photo: AFP/Xinhua/Jiang Chao

Eurasia 24/09/2023 09:00

The Belt and Road Initiative seems to have become part of a reshaping of relations between the traditionally rich and the traditionally poor, with the developing world’s share of global GDP rising in the process.

After a decade of more than 3,100 projects across almost 150 countries amounting to more than US$1 trillion, the steadily rising importance of the Global South is becoming clear, as is China’s role in shaping it, wrote David Dodwell, executive director of the Hong Kong-APEC Trade Policy Study Group in an opinion piece published at South China Morning Post.

According to Dodwell, after a decline in new projects from 2017 through the Covid-19 pandemic, the first half of this year has seen a revival, from US$35 billion in finance and investment in the first half of 2022 to US$43.3 billion in the first half this year.

"Whatever the concerns of naysayers and the numerous projects that have floundered or fallen short of expectations, there is infrastructure being built that would never otherwise have been built. The economic prospects of many in the developing world have been improved as a result."

AFP/Jason Lee

The initiative’s impact is evident in the accelerating expansion of the Brics grouping – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – whose members met in Johannesburg a month ago. Their efforts are strengthening links and economic interdependency between the developing economies across the Global South, with six new members set to join the grouping at the end of the year and more expected to follow, Dodwell noted.

Whatever the scepticism of outside observers, the overriding priority for China in conceiving and developing the initiative was economic. As Jin Liqun, chairman of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said during the bank’s launch in 2016: “The Chinese experience illustrates that infrastructure investment paves the way for broad-based economic social development, and poverty alleviation comes as a natural consequence of that.”

As Dodwell wrote, China’s state-level view was that it was not adequate to provide the world’s poor with fish but instead to provide fishing nets and let the world’s poor fish for themselves.

AFP/NurPhoto/Danil Shamkin

China took up its burden not out of any megalomaniacal vision, or just becuase its own experience with the value of building infrastructure. It was afraid of chronic and deepening Islamic fundamentalist conflict in Central Asia which could destabilise China through Xinjiang from the west. It was also concerned about maritime vulnerability, with the Malacca Strait bottleneck separating China from its main trading partners, particularly oil and gas suppliers in the Middle East, according to Dodwell.

"Xinjiang needed markets to trade with, and these sat westward across Central Asia – from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, down into Pakistan and Afghanistan and westward through Iraq and Iraq to the Persian Gulf and Europe. Reviving these once-vibrant ancient trade routes would not only lift the fortunes of many people but also improve China’s land-based economic linkages to the Indian Ocean – via Pakistan to its Gwadar Port – and across to Europe and ultimately to Africa. China’s economic and strategic imperatives aligned perfectly."

BRI has boosted China's ability to build stronger trading links across Asia and Africa. This has altered the balance of global economic power and transformed the prospects for many developing countries worldwide. According to a new report by the China International Capital Corporation, China is the top trading partner of 35 countries which are part of the initiative, Dodwell concluded.

#BRI #China

China's BRI has lifted the Global South

The Belt and Road Initiative seems to have become part of a reshaping of relations between the traditionally rich and the traditionally poor, with the developing world’s share of global GDP rising in the process.

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