{"id":83185,"date":"2023-10-26T14:30:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T03:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=83185"},"modified":"2023-10-26T13:28:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T02:28:11","slug":"no-one-paid-attention-to-last-weeks-belt-and-road-forum-and-thats-bad-for-xi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/no-one-paid-attention-to-last-weeks-belt-and-road-forum-and-thats-bad-for-xi\/","title":{"rendered":"No one paid attention to last week\u2019s Belt and Road forum\u2014and that\u2019s bad for Xi"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With all that\u2019s going on in the world, you could be forgiven for missing that the 10th anniversary forum of Xi Jinping\u2019s flagship foreign policy and trade program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was held in Beijing in the middle of last week. Some saw the West\u2019s involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine as creating a strategic opening for Chinese diplomacy at the forum. But that\u2019s a misreading of China\u2019s public diplomacy goals and a far too rosy view of how last week\u2019s event actually went.<\/p>\n

China wants the world to value the BRI and to view China as a legitimate leader of nations in global development. As an initiative that Xi himself proposed in 2013, its success is directly linked to his power as a leader.<\/p>\n

Beijing saw this forum as a crucial chance to advocate for its \u2018global community of shared future\u2019 proposal. In the run-up, it released<\/a> a white paper outlining how this proposal could lead to a new type of international relations that rejects the Western-led multilateral order and its emphasis on \u2018universal values\u2019. It also published<\/a> a white paper on the BRI, positioning it as a core pillar of the \u2018global community of shared future\u2019 proposal. Xi\u2019s keynote<\/a> address at the conference focused on lauding the achievements of the first 10 years of the BRI and how following China\u2019s development path through the \u2018global community of shared future\u2019 was the best way towards world peace and prosperity.<\/p>\n

This message fell on deaf ears. Chinese state media reported<\/a> that representatives from more than 140 countries attended the event, but, in fact, only 21 countries sent representatives at the head-of-state level. That\u2019s the lowest ever attendance<\/a> of heads of state at a BRI forum. Notably, the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa\u2014which, along with Russia and China, comprise BRICS\u2014were absent.<\/p>\n

In a telling contrast, Fiji\u2019s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka chose <\/a>to make a state visit to Australia last week rather than attend the forum, sending his deputy to China instead. No bilateral BRI projects between China and Fiji were announced at the forum, whereas Australia announced<\/a> a new pathway to permanent residency for citizens of the Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste. This is something China would never be able to offer the Pacific and addresses a genuine policy want from countries in the region.<\/p>\n

China also made a public diplomacy blunder in giving Russian President Vladmir Putin top billing at the forum. Putin appeared<\/a> next to Xi in the leader\u2019s photo and was given<\/a> the most important position after Xi as a keynote speaker. While we should worry about the strengthening Sino-Russian \u2018no limits\u2019 partnership, Russia isn\u2019t even formally part of the BRI. Rather than emphasising strength and unity, giving Putin such a prominent role instead undercut China\u2019s claims to multilateralism and anti-hegemony. That\u2019s not to mention the image problems China has from its support of another rogue actor, the Taliban, who were invited<\/a> to attend the forum and have been encouraged to join the BRI.<\/p>\n

Many countries may have sent representatives to the forum as a way to maintain good relations with China, but not to further deepen their engagement with the BRI. With many Chinese development banks and financing institutions in attendance, countries with large BRI projects may have also used it as an opportunity to negotiate their existing financial agreements with China, rather than sign on to new deals. Indeed, Sri Lanka, which owes Chinese lenders more than US$7 billion, had its president advocating <\/a>that a lack of debt relief for low-income countries posed an existential risk to the BRI.<\/p>\n

In analysing where the BRI is going, we should look at what China does, not what it says. Major BRI projects are typically announced in an outcomes document from the forum, and an analysis of this year\u2019s outcomes show a gap between what China says its new vision for the BRI is and what it is actually funding. Most projects in the list are not new deals and had already been announced prior to the forum. For example, the document announced that China would build the Solomon Islands\u2019 national broadband network, although the deal was already signed <\/a>more than a year ago. Similarly, China said it would construct the Kaduna\u2013Kano railway in Nigeria, but ground was already broken <\/a>on the project in mid-2021.<\/p>\n

At the forum, Xi announced that \u2018green development\u2019 in the BRI would be a major step in the initiative, and early analysis has noted<\/a> that the BRI will now be \u2018smaller and greener\u2019. While several renewable energy projects were announced, analysis of the outcomes document shows that the dominant type of project in the BRI still appears to be infrastructure, such as railways, ports, airports and sports stadiums. And as much as Xi\u2019s speeches at the conference repeatedly emphasised his new focus on \u2018high-quality\u2019 Belt and Road cooperation, China will still have to manage a hefty legacy portfolio of large and not-so-high-quality projects like the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and the China\u2013Pakistan Economic Corridor.<\/p>\n

With close to US$1 trillion in funding granted over the years, the BRI remains a formidable tool of economic statecraft for China to pursue its foreign policy and security ambitions. But the poor attendance of world leaders at last week\u2019s forum and the lack of international attention paid to it would be far from what Xi feels his initiative deserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all that\u2019s going on in the world, you could be forgiven for missing that the 10th anniversary forum of Xi Jinping\u2019s flagship foreign policy and trade program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1790,"featured_media":83186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1920,52,294,475,204],"class_list":["post-83185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-belt-and-road-initiative","tag-china","tag-diplomacy","tag-infrastructure","tag-xi-jinping"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNo one paid attention to last week\u2019s Belt and Road forum\u2014and that\u2019s bad for Xi | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/no-one-paid-attention-to-last-weeks-belt-and-road-forum-and-thats-bad-for-xi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No one paid attention to last week\u2019s Belt and Road forum\u2014and that\u2019s bad for Xi | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With all that\u2019s going on in the world, you could be forgiven for missing that the 10th anniversary forum of Xi Jinping\u2019s flagship foreign policy and trade program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/no-one-paid-attention-to-last-weeks-belt-and-road-forum-and-thats-bad-for-xi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-26T03:30:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-26T02:28:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1730511523.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"682\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jacinta Keast\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jacinta Keast\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/no-one-paid-attention-to-last-weeks-belt-and-road-forum-and-thats-bad-for-xi\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1730511523.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1730511523.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":682,\"caption\":\"TOPSHOT - China's President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 18, 2023. 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