The article titled, “Can China Take the Middle of Nowhere and turn it into the Center of World Economy investigated China’s Belt and Road initiative and how it is affecting global economics and politics. The Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, is a Chinese investment program that builds infrastructure in underdeveloped areas. The program was first promoted as a good and beneficial thing. However, there have been some issues with the BRI in recent years. China invests both the money and labor into its infrastructure projects in other countries. Basically, China uses a Chinese workforce to complete the project, rather than utilizing a native workforce in the country of choice. This has angered numerous countries as they feel that potential jobs have been lost. Additionally, the BRI investment is a loan that China could call in when it sees fit. If a country is unable to pay the loan back, China has often taken land or rights away from a country. For example, China recently constructed a Chinese owned and operated space base in Argentina. Thus, the BRI has become an equivalent of the World Bank or WTO as it is highly regulatory with the money offered and forces change if the money cannot be repaid. This relates to the premise in Chapter 28 of the textbook in which the author claims that economic activity is closely related to politics. The BRI is promoted as an economic alternative to the WTO or the World Bank, but acts as an undermining force to Western and American control, thus affecting politics. Additionally, in Chapter 30 the author discusses that globalism may have gone too far if foreign workers can be substituted for home workers in another country. This can be seen in the BRI program as China uses its own workforce to construct these infrastructure programs in other countries.
1 comment:
I agree with all your points!!! The BRI and the "debt-entrapment" is used as a way to "soft" power. I don't think I've heard of any of these smaller, debt-entrapped countries, effectively resisting or staying on even ground with China. To be granted, I'm not checking the news on China daily, but I've always wondered if they're ever has to back up their claims in an indebted country with military force. Then again, they hardly need to. The influence China has accumulated through the BRI is probably scarier than any trade-sanctions the U.S. has inflicted on some of these cash-strapped nations. Why bother with military threats in far-away lands when you can just cut them off? No one's self-sufficient anymore, and China may have enough ties with the neighboring countries to really make squabbling not worth it for a an already cash-strapped country.
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