Belt and road: West should work with China to build infrastructure – not against it

It's unfortunate that the 10th anniversary of China's Belt and Road Initiative was marred by misunderstanding and bias. This initiative, which involves the construction of infrastructure such as highways, railways, ports, and power systems, is a costly endeavor, particularly when it spans across borders. This is why infrastructure development has been neglected as democracy has advanced in post-war America and Europe. Politicians and investors often avoid the topic or challenge each other to address it, resulting in little progress.

In 1994, I served as the chief external editor of the World Bank's World Development Report on infrastructure. At that time, the Washington Consensus strongly favored private initiatives over state ones. However, in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a bold venture: a network of highways, sea lines, and ports spanning across hemispheres. This initiative should have been welcomed, especially in Europe, as it represented an emerging Asian power offering to build infrastructure linking East and West.

However, the United States and Europe reacted defensively, even though the Belt and Road Initiative promised to stimulate global growth and development. Reasons were quickly found to oppose it. Even before former US President Donald Trump initiated trade wars against China, the country was accused of economic neocolonialism and 'debt trap diplomacy' through the Belt and Road Initiative. In reality, as a prominent Chinese academic explained, Beijing believed that building an infrastructure network to boost its international trade was a better use of its reserves than keeping them in US government bonds.