Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
SDF announces the killing of three of its members as a result of ISIS cells detonating a landmine targeting a vehicle of a security patrol on the Hasaka-Raqqa road
The Popular Resistance Committees: We call on all international institutions to take urgent action and uphold their responsibilities by restoring and immediately enforcing effective mechanisms for the distribution of humanitarian aid.
The Popular Resistance Committees: The latest Zio-American crime against Gaza’s starving civilians constitutes a war crime, for which the US administration bears full and direct responsibility.
Gaza Media Office: Bloody spectacle shows that these zones have become collective death traps rather than aid distribution zones.
Gaza Media Office: Dozens of citizens are still surrounded under constant fire in the vicinity of the "aid station."
Gaza Media Office: As soon as citizens arrived, occupation and Americans opened direct fire on them.
Gaza Media Office: Occupation, in complicity with the US company, called on citizens to move toward Wadi Gaza Bridge, claiming that aid would be distributed.
Gaza Government Media Office: Occupation set a bloody trap at bridge of Wadi Gaza, luring thousands of starved civilians, and opened fire on them.
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in South Lebanon: Israeli drone drops sonic grenade in town of Ramiyah.
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in South Lebanon: Israeli drone strike targets vehicle in town of Beit Lif.

Is China’s development juggernaut gasping for breath?

  • Azhar Azam Azhar Azam
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 25 May 2023 23:51
  • 3 Shares
6 Min Read

Due to its collaborative features of connectivity, economic integration, infrastructure development, and poverty alleviation, the BRI has developed into an iconic brand for mutual growth, prosperity, and cooperation among the member states.

  • x
  • Is China’s development juggernaut gasping for breath?

Into its 10th year, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) isn’t a project of just steel and concrete. Due to its collaborative features of connectivity, economic integration, infrastructure development, and poverty alleviation, as well as by institutionalizing concepts of clean, green, and digital technology – it has developed into an iconic brand for mutual growth, prosperity, and cooperation among the member states.

According to a report by Professor Dr. Christoph Nedopil, who simultaneously works with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and leading international financial institutions, such as Asia Development Bank, World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, cumulative BRI engagement by the end of 2022 had reached $962 billion. The lead author of the UDP SDG Finance Taxonomy reported a resonant 3,450% and 7,536% growth in finance and technology, as well as a 50% expansion in green energy engagement last year.

The world response to the BRI is overwhelming. Some 147 countries, covering roughly two-thirds of the world population and 40% of the global GDP, have joined the initiative. By 2022, trade volume between China and the BRI countries had almost doubled from just over $1 trillion in 2013 to more than $2 trillion in 2022 at an average growth rate of 8%.

Bilateral investments surpassed $270 billion; the Chinese companies created some 421,000 jobs for local communities, helping lift nearly 40 million people out of poverty. This is in line with the World Bank’s estimate, which, in a 2019 policy research working paper, predicted the initiative had the potential to cut extreme and moderate poverty by 7.6 million and 32 million respectively.

The BRI projects are criticized for mounting heavy debt burdens on the developing countries of Asia and Africa; this criticism disregards the destination states' own penchant for trade-not-aid in an attempt to establish their "identity" as a trading nation. The latest findings reveal that almost all countries have benefitted, whether it be the world-class infrastructure, improved connectivity, or increased trade and investment with China, from the project.

In sharp contrast to the prevailing wisdom in the West, “the project of the century” isn’t losing its luster, gasping for breath, or running out of steam. Host countries, such as Malaysia and Pakistan, today are less incredulous and more unequivocal that the BRI is transparent, denying perceptions of the “Chinese debt trap” as “concocted.”

Even academics at top US institutions, who cite Chinese companies and the member countries' “overzealous engagement” as a reason for the BRI stagnation, do not buy the argument that the project involves “malicious or predatory lending.” Researchers of the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at the John Hopkins University recently evaluated China’s participation in the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative for Africa and concluded that Beijing “fulfilled its role fairly well as a responsible G-20 stakeholder.” Although the Chinese creditors accounted for just 30% of the claims, they contributed to 63% of the debt service suspensions.

Some developing countries, such as Sri Lanka, struggled in paying off their debts; it was largely because of their political decisions and domestic infighting. A briefing paper, authored by the Sri Lankan scholars Umesh Moramudali and Thilina Panduwawala and published by the CARI in November 2022, spurned the notion of branding Colombo as a victim of Beijing’s debt trap. Still, quite a few in America including the US State Department officials absurdly single out China for putting Sri Lanka “straight on a path toward Sino state-status” and piling up debt “elsewhere".

Related News

Colombia's Silk Road turn: Breaking the chains of US hegemony

China’s role in post-Assad Syria: Respecting the will of the Syrian people

Amid attempts to belittle the advantages of the BRI for Europe, the China-Europe Express Train (CEET), especially after the implementation of the BRI, has become an important trade route and a symbol of booming development for the region. The train as of 2022 had run 65,000 trips and shipped six million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of freight valuing $300 billion, in addition to connecting more than 200 cities in 24 European countries.

The CEET is thus helping to increase trade, boost the economies of China, Central Asia, and the European countries, as well as contribute to the well-being of the people across China, the Central Asia states, and the European countries. In this vein, the BRI is a project of every participating nation and an insignia of peace for it also promotes people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two continents.

A flurry of the European Union leaders’ visits to Beijing and the welcoming of the call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Brussels demonstrate that the two sides are willing to resolve the Ukraine conflict and strengthen their economic relationship. As there isn’t a short-term solution to the crisis, leaders of the two leading economies should look to manage differences, foster engagement, and work together for peace and economic resilience.

The US antagonism toward the BRI and propagation of the project as China’s “debt trap diplomacy” has an explicit motive. Many in the US see China’s rise as a threat to America's economic and financial dominance or Bretton Woods through which officials of the developing states believe that the country accumulated global wealth and imposed its political philosophy on them. 

For most of these nations, Washington’s criticism of the BRI is meaningless rhetoric while offering a series of millstone initiatives, including G7's Build Back Better World and Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment that merely focus on rivaling the BRI in a bid to obstruct China’s rise without addressing their development challenges.

As the Chinese development juggernaut makes sustained progress and powers global green and digital growth by leading in areas including renewable energy, high-speed railway, and 5G networks – arguments, such as momentum behind the BRI is slowing and its characterization as a “debt trap,” lead astray. 

Trade remains a “force of resilience” in the global economy, said the Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of the World Trade Organization last month as her institution revised the international trade growth forecast from 1.0% to 1.7% in 2023, thanks to its “pent-up” consumer demand in China. This as well as Beijing’s role as a “world builder” and robust trade with the world and BRI countries between January and April substantiates the vitality of China and the BRI for the international economy and global development.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • belt and road initiative
  • debt trap
  • debt
  • US
  • China
  • BRI
  • China in space
Azhar Azam

Azhar Azam

Writer.

Most Read

All
Although the background information does not indicate direct US involvement, considering the broader geopolitical context, it is plausible that the US would have an indirect impact. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab El-Hajj)

Did 'Israel', US fight a proxy war with China in South Asia during the India-Pakistan escalation?

  • Feature
  • 19 May 2025
The two countries need to sit down and resolve the crisis with maturity, to consider carefully that they could be being manipulated to be easily dominated. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Algeria and Mali, divided and almost conquered

  • Opinion
  • 25 May 2025
It may well be due to the longstanding relationship between MI6 and HTS, via Inter Mediate, that Britain was the first Western country to recognise their assumption of government in Syria. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab El-Hajj)

How MI6 helped HTS seize Syria

  • Opinion
  • 31 May 2025
Trump and Biden both pretended to be fighting Netanyahu

Trump and Biden both pretended to be fighting Netanyahu

  • Analysis
  • 28 May 2025

Coverage

All
The Ummah's Martyrs

More from this writer

All
US long history of waging wars casts doubt about intent to reduce risk of South China Sea miscalculation

US long history of waging wars casts doubt about intent to reduce risk of South China Sea miscalculation

The United States of Coercion is disenfranchising billions of their fundamental right to live

The United States of Coercion is disenfranchising billions of their fundamental right to live

A multipolar world order is in the making and that’s good for international peace

A multipolar world order is in the making and that’s good for international peace

By shelving the ideological approach and backing peace efforts, the US could still make a positive contribution to safeguard international stability and resolve a conflict threatening to shape into a "mother of all forever wars" for Americans.

Why is America lagging behind on key international diplomatic initiatives?

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS