The leaders of the G-7, the group of the world’s richest ‘democratic’ countries, announced their global infrastructure plan on Sunday, and many questions were immediately raised about it. This plan of $ 600 billion was announced by US President Joe Biden. Although Biden did not name China in his speech, it is well known according to observers that this plan has been prepared in response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
A year ago, when the G-7 summit was held in Britain, even then such a plan was announced. At that time it was named Build Back Better World. But there was no progress on that. Meanwhile, Biden’s plan, announced in America under the name Build Back Better, could not get the full support of his own Democratic Party. Now Biden has announced a new plan called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure. Meanwhile, the European Union and Britain have separately announced such plans.
China has forged close ties with dozens of developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the BRI. But the US and Western countries allege that the loans given by China under the BRI include confidential terms. Due to this, the country concerned has to pay a higher amount than the stated amount. In addition, the Chinese project ignores climate change goals.
US officials said on Sunday that now Western countries will give their options to developing countries. Biden said that under the new plan, work has started on initial projects in many countries. They include a solar power project in Angola, a vaccine production facility in Senegal, a modular reactor project in Romania, and an underwater telecommunications cable from Singapore to France via Egypt.
The British newspaper The Guardian has pointed out in a report that in the meantime the EU has started work on its global gateway plan of 300 billion euros. On the other hand, Britain has launched the Clean Green Initiative project. Japan is also preparing a blueprint for a $65 billion plan for regional connectivity. Now the challenge will arise to harmonize all this with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure scheme.
On Sunday, German Chancellor Olof Scholz admitted indirectly that the plans had created confusion. He said- ‘If the G-7 countries can bring their efforts under one umbrella, then it will have its benefits.’ According to analysts, no roadmap has been presented as to how the funding problem will be resolved for the newly announced scheme. Biden said the US would raise $200 billion over the next five years. This amount will be raised from contributions from both the public and private sectors. But whether the private sector will really play a role in this is the key question.
Economist David P Goldman has said that China is the world’s largest exporter of capital goods for infrastructure. By the way, if the American plan really works, it will mean that Chinese companies will get new customers. That is, possibly China will benefit in this plan as well.