China turns on the charm to get its belt and road plan back on track
- Beijing’s diplomats are leading a global effort to breathe new life into the stalled multibillion-dollar scheme, but observers say revitalising it in a post-pandemic world will not be easy
- China said in June that about 60 per cent of projects under the plan had been affected in some way by the global health crisis
Chinese diplomats have been on the road in recent weeks trying to whip up fresh enthusiasm for Beijing’s faltering trade and infrastructure development plan which has faced new pressures from the coronavirus pandemic.
Beijing has been accused of pushing developing nations into debt traps and of using the scheme as a foil for increasing its political leverage around the world.
On his return, Yang described the four countries as important partners along the route and said China was keen to develop more projects with them in the future.
Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank in the US, said that the high pace of development seen in the early years of the belt and road plan – it was launched in 2013 – was no longer sustainable.
“The pace and scale … was not necessarily so prudent, either economically or politically, and it might be better to proceed in a more targeted, recalibrated fashion that is more attuned to economic and political risk,” he said.
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Despite Beijing’s ambitions, re-energising the scheme would not be easy, Small said.
“Practical reasons, macroeconomic reasons [and] the inability to resolve the debt picture across the developing world, as well as the politically contentious nature of some of the projects mean there are a few obstacles to revitalising it”, he said.
On a visit to Bangkok on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised to sell Thailand’s massive infrastructure, technology and trade zone plan – known as the Eastern Economic Corridor – to Chinese companies and make it a focal point for the belt and road scheme in the region.
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On a global scale, travel restrictions were likely to remain a challenge to revitalising the belt and road plan in a post-pandemic world, he said, although the situation might provide opportunities for Chinese companies to “explore better use of local raw materials and labour in host countries”.
Le Hong Hiep, a research fellow on foreign policy at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said China had to be more discerning not only about what projects to develop, but also how to finance them.
“Sooner or later, China will have to scale down [the belt and road plan] and become more selective about projects … it can no longer bankroll just any scheme,” he said.
