Biden Wants a Rival to China’s Belt and Road

Hilarious. Good luck with that.

Of course, a US-led competitor to Belt and Road already exists, except without all the funding, November 2019:

Now finally comes what might be described as the institutional American response to Belt and Road: the Blue Dot Network.

Blue Dot is described, officially, as promoting global, multi-stakeholder “sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”

It is a joint project of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation, in partnership with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

Now compare it with what just happened this same week at the inauguration of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.

As Xi stressed: “To date, China has signed 197 documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 137 countries and 30 international organizations.”

This is what Blue Dot is up against – especially across the Global South. Well, not really. Global South diplomats, informally contacted, are not exactly impressed. They might see Blue Dot as an aspiring competitor to BRI, but one that’s moved by private finance – mostly, in theory, American.

They scoff at the prospect that Blue Dot will include some sort of ratings mechanism that will be positioned to vet and downgrade Belt and Road projects. Washington will spin it as a “certification” process setting “international standards” – implying Belt and Road is sub-standard. Whether Global South nations will pay attention to these new ratings is an open question.

It’s more of an anti-Chinese slander campaign than a real infrastructure fund in its own right. Biden claims he wants to change that (not that he’s in a position to put up any real money):

Speaking to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday, President Biden suggested that the US and its allies should pursue a massive infrastructure plan to compete with China’s Belt and Road initiative.

“We talked about China and the competition they’re engaging in in the Belt and Road Initiative,” Biden told reporters after the call. “And I suggested we should have, essentially, a similar initiative coming from the democratic states.”

The Belt and Road initiative is an ambitious project that was launched by Beijing in 2013. It stretches from East Asia to Europe, and most of Washington’s European and NATO allies are involved in the project. The Trump administration discouraged its allies from participating in the project but did not have much success.

Biden’s suggestion to Johnson came after his first press conference that was held Thursday, where he vowed that he would not allow China to become the world’s “leading” country. “China has an overall goal … to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world. That’s not going to happen on my watch,” he said. [Because your watch isn’t going to be all that long?]

Using Cold War-style language, Biden painted US competition with China as a battle between democracy and autocracy. “I predict to you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, not just with China,” he said.

Well if the Empire wants to run, what all too often amounts to an ill-conceived giveaway to the Third World, it is welcome to do so. However, I suspect the Imperials will not be quite as generous as the image-conscious Chinese have been. They certainly haven’t proven such in their running of the IMF, which has frequently squeezed countries to breaking point and beyond over a few pitiful millions.

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12 Comments
  1. wrok.de says

    Give’im Lego to play – he will built something out of it, a habour or something like. And will stay away from world politics

    1. Mr Reynard says
  2. mijj says

    Biden says to the world – you too can have the crap crumbling half-assed infrastructure of the USA.

    1. tobi999 says

      u do know that some of it is owned by China and in better shape as they could be hold responsible for it…..but its funny how western private owners can fuck up everything…..water, electricity gas……transportation……this fucking rentire casino capitalism must die, we need industrial capitalism….no more money for nothing build and constructed in the real world….fuck wallstreet and hedgefonds clowsn….they must die off!!!

      1. tobi999 says

        I was in Germany 2018-2020 they had in winter a blackout too for 2 weeks in a federal state….how the fuck can this happen the cables bursted because of the ice….yeah fuck my ass. I lived in Germany from 1984 to 2012…it never happened before….same with train lines they have to reduce speed as they do less mantaince of the the railways….its funny when I left the speed limit there was 200 now its 120……as I worked in the biggest train company DB…Germany is not so far away from rotting and collapsing infrastructure….as long Berlin is fine….and the Bankers city Frankfurt they give a fuck about the rest…..

    2. Ultrafart the Brave says

      Well stated.

      On reading this article,the following quote jumps out:

      “Speaking to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday, President Biden suggested that the US and its allies should pursue a massive infrastructure plan to compete with China’s Belt and Road initiative.”

      Perhaps the USA should think first about repairing its own crumbling infrastructure before attempting to seduce the world with a global infrastructure project.

  3. yuri says

    blue dot= new brand name for LSD supplied to biden by CIA

  4. tobi999 says

    which democracy???? there isn’t one its an oligarchy that pretends to be a democracy….to keep the sheeple calm and dumb

  5. Eddy says

    So Biden wants to compete with China’s Bric Road ? L.O.L. They were given the opportunity to JOIN this program, but instead skoffed at it and did everything in their power to undermine China’s efforts. Australia, my pitiful country, jumped up in protest when China did a deal with Pacific nations, crying buckets of tears after China loaned these nations massive amounts of money to build infrastructure on their islands. Australia claimed these islands were within their sphere of influence, therefor China was intruding. However, the FACT that Australia has NEVER, loaned any such finding to these nations to build infrastructure seems to be ignored. The question is; Why has Australia all of a sudden, after many years of neglect, taken upon it’self to claim rights to these nations that it has never considered worthy to offer such support ? Same goes for Papua and New Guenea, again, after many years of total ignoring these nations, and in fact surrendering Papua to the Indonesians, now that China has loaned massive sums to build fish processing plants and create employment for the unemployed of New Geanea, Australia is again jumpoing up and down complaining and making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims and allegations. But in all the years of my life, 71 years, Australia has NEVER offered these nations any such assistance or funding that the Chinese seem to be keen to do. Sure, occassionly, after representatives from these nations have lobbied Canberra for assistance, Australia has given AID, but that AID comes with strings attached, and cannot be utilised for the construction of infrastructure and can only be used for buying crap from Australia, so the money goes into Australian pockets and the situation in these countries stays the same.
    Now, all of a sudden, it’s claimed Biden wishes to offer a competitive alternative to China’s efforts. How can anyone believe this, when never in the history of America, has America ever done such a thing, and would NEVER outlay it’s own funds to anyone, to build infrastructure when their own infrastructure is falling apart ?

    1. Ultrafart the Brave says

      You probably also noticed how the Australian Federal Government passed laws with the specific purpose of squashing Victoria’s intended independent participation in China’s BRI.

      Australian “democracy” at work – for the benefit of Team America and politicians’ lucrative retirements, at the expense of ordinary Australians.

    2. Bill Jackson says

      Good article, Eddy

  6. Ying Jun says

    AmeriKKKnt is a joke. First, they badmouthed China’s Belt&Road then they want to offer an alternative? AmeriKKKnt does not have the money or the manpower to set up their own B&R.

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