“一帶一路”倡議：世界人民的公共產品

Author: Fabio Massimo Parenti

Foreign Associate Professor of International Studies at China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing; Professor at the Italian International Institute Lorenzo de' Medici-Marist College, Firenze

From “benevolence and kindness to neighbors” and “benefiting the public” to the Five Principles for Peaceful Coexistence; from “a community with a shared future for mankind” to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China's diplomacy has always been characterized by independence and win-win cooperation. Over the last 10 years, the BRI as a public product for people in the world has contributed a series of Chinese concepts and propositions to the world by promoting the common values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom.

The Truth & Myth of the BRI

What is the Belt and Road Initiative, more often known as the New Silk Road? We should start being reminded that it is mainly the largest investment plan in history, composed of land and maritime intercontinental routes, which was developed and launched by China in 2013.

For its geographic and economic sizes and the unavoidable geopolitical implications, many scholars and opinion makers came up with some questions: is the BRI a geostrategic tool for an alleged Chinese expansionism? Is it a geopolitical leverage to compete with the West? Is it in some way comparable to the Marshall Plan (the US-led plan at the beginning of the Cold War to confront the Soviet Union in Europe), or is it a proposal, characterized by different but ultimately beneficial, of political and cultural premises for the world’s people? 

Although many Westerners are distrustful of the BRI, there has been an increasing interest in this Initiative around the world over the last decade. The New Silk Road is focused on the development of the intercontinental connectivity on land, sea, and air. 

This huge investment plan may be seen as a new proposal to enhance the world cooperation and boost multilateralism, thus, offering a new chance to face the most urgent global issues such as poverty, unequal development, conflicts, environmental degradation and global governance. It is not an aid plan or conceived to oppose the geopolitical competitors of China. 

The comparison with the Marshall Plan is at least misleading. There are many arguments to demonstrate the incomparability between the two plans, such as the quantity of financial sources deployed (around one trillion dollars for the BRI – till now, compared with the Marshall Plan’s dozens of billions), and the geographic size, which is not confined to the military allies but always open to all the countries of the world. 

Genuine Chinese Diplomacy vs. the Freakish “Meme Theory”

The Chinese strategy in the last decades has created the material basis to make the BRI a realistic and attractive initiative. The Chinese domestic economic success itself represents a necessary premise to understand properly the real nature of the BRI. 

We need to consider many other fundamental sides to interpret the historic uniqueness of this Initiative proposed by China: its multipolar nature as well as the principles, values and other very ambitious purposes of China. According to the documents released at the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) in 2017, the CPC established two main purposes: (1) building new types of international relations, based on win-win cooperation and mutual trust; (2) creating a community with a shared future for mankind. 

Indeed, China’s proposal of global projection lies on a series of traditional principles borrowed from Chinese diplomatic culture, including win-win cooperation, mutual respect and dialogue among equals. These principles represent the core of the alternative idea of globalization with Chinese characteristics and are the background of the birth and operation of the BRI. There is nothing similar in the Marshall Plan, at any rate considering its limited geographic dimension and its geostrategic premises.

Over the last years, one of the most common criticisms was related to the so-called “Chinese Debt Trap Diplomacy”. It is a meme issued by an Indian think tank and has been reintroduced in a Harvard student’s paper in 2017. Since that moment, the developing countries’ foreign debt issue became, in a quite freakish manner, the result of China’s new Initiative for the world rather than the consequence of the US-led Western bloc financial dominance. 

The “meme-theory”, under which China was trying to entrap the developing countries inside a debt web that would allow the country to gain strategic benefits and assets around the world, does not match any empirical validations. Indeed, Western countries blaming China in this sense are exactly those who have really practised an out-and-out “debt-trap” against the decolonized countries of the Global South over the last seventy years, with the aim to subjugate them and ensure their subservience to the US and its closest allies’ interests. 

Speaking with Facts—the BRI and A Friendly China

If we look at the present-day literature, we can clearly deduce the inconsistency of the accusations against China—a country that the developing world sees as neither a threat nor a new colonizer. Concerning this, it is useful to list briefly some relevant points to debunk the main stereotypes about that Chinese “debt-trap” meme.

Countries that have received new and sometimes significant loans from China have negotiated their respective deals according to the principle of mutual benefit, including the money-for-oil deal such as Venezuela and Angola. In the case of Venezuela, it has not been able to supply oil to its Chinese lender any more because of the oil crisis and the US sanctions. Nevertheless, China has not given up keeping cooperative ties with Venezuela and has started a debt restructuring, continuing to buy in cash and thus accepting temporary lost sources instead of raging against a partner in trouble. 

In 2018, only twenty percents of the African countries’ foreign debt were due to China, while the remaining eighty percents were due to public and private institutional investors mainly belonging to the Western financial system (e.g., Paris Club, IMF, World Bank, other multilateral institutions and private sectors, except China). Thus the debt-trap--granted that it really existed, should not be due to the BRI.

In the so much controversial case of Hambantota International Port, in Sri Lanka, it is necessary to notice that the local government started the construction in 2007, firstly demanding assistance from some Chinese companies and loans in 2009. The deal was closed in 2017 when the two parties reached an agreement to provide further loans in exchange for the purchase of the seventy-percent share of the port property. Nevertheless, the Sri Lankan government needed financial sources to repay maturing debts, not with China but with other international investors. In 2019, the Chinese share of the Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was equal to ten percents, similar to the share of Japan. Furthermore, over the last years, the interest rate applied by China has decreased and the time for repayment has been extended, providing for a plan to reduce China’s property share until its gradual extinction. 

Finally, the independent inquiries (The Pew Charitable Trust and Afrobarometer) confirm a vast consensus among African people towards the new forms of cooperation with China, such as project financing for infrastructural development, new investment opportunities, credit access, new development plans, etc..

These are just some practical factors that unambiguously debunk the “debt-trap” meme, which according to China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson, is the umpteenth example of the “American-style lies diplomacy.”

(The article has been edited. Subheadings are written by editor. This article was published in the December 2023 issue of Bauhinia Magazine)