{"id":31964,"date":"2017-05-22T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-21T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=31964"},"modified":"2018-02-06T16:51:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T05:51:33","slug":"chinas-belt-road-promise-asias-fear-greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/chinas-belt-road-promise-asias-fear-greed\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Belt and Road promise, Asia\u2019s fear and greed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Beijing\u2019s great celebration of the Belt and Road Initiative<\/a> was a lavish display of China\u2019s promise and power. All those nations paying court to Xi Jinping\u2019s celebratory circus confront the conflicting emotions captured by a fine journalistic phrase-maker who won a day job as Australia\u2019s Prime Minister. Asked by Angela Merkel in 2014 what was driving Oz China policy, Tony Abbott got it into one vivid phrase: \u2018fear and greed\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s zinger resonates across Asia as it does in Australia. Power shifts riding on huge wealth effects naturally produce avarice and apprehension. \u2018Power\u2019 can be both a plural or singular noun; and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is dollar power dancing with soft power while holding hands with hard power.<\/p>\n

Just as the Beijing Olympics was a moment of greatness, Beijing\u2019s BRI bonanza is another magnificently-staged moment: China reaches out to 60 countries with infrastructure, trade, finance\u2014and ambition. \u00a0Exporting China\u2019s model will be extremely difficult. Lots won\u2019t work. Plenty of cash will gurgle away. Factor in many failures as China tries to build big in foreign climes.<\/p>\n

Yet if Beijing delivers only half of its BRI promises, that\u2019s a lot of power created, an even bigger leadership role for China, and a greatly enhanced web of bilateral and regional relationships.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s dream is of the dominant Asian power cementing its dominance with cement. The world\u2019s second biggest economy in dollar terms\u2014and since 2014 the world\u2019s biggest economy in purchasing power parity<\/a>\u2014is rolling out mountains of dollars. While Donald Trump looks inward to make America great again, Xi reaches out to make China great again on the world stage.<\/p>\n

Watching it all in Beijing, Rowan Callick<\/a> saw a party with lots of power dimensions:<\/p>\n

\u2018China under Xi has moved into the space left by Washington, as a can-do, big-picture, global-scale economic mover and shaker\u2014with geopolitical strings attached.<\/p>\n

No one can afford to ignore or underestimate China, the only country with the economic grunt to carry this off. The timing for BRI is fortuitous and impeccable.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Australia\u2019s former ambassador to China, Geoff Raby<\/a>, says Beijing has three BRI imperatives:<\/p>\n

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  1. Economic: diversify holdings of foreign assets away from US Treasury notes, as part of China\u2019s \u2018Go Global\u2019 strategy; plus foreign infrastructure provides a vent for China’s growing excess capacity as its own infrastructure needs are built out.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Internal stability: developing the poorer remote border provinces.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Strategic: \u2018China is presenting<\/span> a new narrative to the world<\/span><\/a>: that it has the will, resources and ideas to provide global leadership and it intends to reshape the international order.\u2019<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What China has already built in Asia this century is the model for what it wants to replicate on a larger scale. And what China has already done shows the pitfalls. Beijing\u2019s major infrastructure build in Sri Lanka was based on President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his political machine. Rajapaksa\u2019s election loss in 2015 was partly about Sri Lankans rejecting a Chinese embrace. The same story can be read into Myanmar\u2019s 2011 decision to walk away from a giant Chinese dam project; Myanmar\u2019s regime turned towards democracy as it turned away from Chinese dominance.<\/p>\n

    Evelyn Goh\u2019s depiction of China\u2019s rising influence in developing Asia<\/a> shows a patron that doesn\u2019t get all it wants from its supposed clients. In contrast to the US\u2019s security-focussed approach, Goh sees China offering Asia an economic and development partnership with these characteristics<\/a>:<\/p>\n