On June 26, 2022, US President Biden officially announced a Group of Seven (G7) infrastructure plan, which aims to raise $600 billion over five years to provide developing countries with funds for developing infrastructure. Although Biden did not mention China in his speech, it is widely believed to be a counterweight to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

It is worth noting that at the G7 summit in 2021, Biden also announced a global infrastructure plan that "points at China", and the final progress is far from the billions of dollars he originally promised. The new initiative this time is equivalent to relaunching the old plan after supplementing and modifying it.

It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish

Biden announced the "Global Infrastructure Partnership" (PGII) initiative during the G7 summit in Bavaria, Germany, from June 26 to 28, 2022. He said the goal of the initiative is to work with G7 countries to mobilize $600 billion for global infrastructure investment by 2027, of which the U.S. will raise $200 billion through grants, federal financing and private investment.

Many foreign media pointed out that, unlike China's Belt and Road Initiative, the financing of Biden's plan largely depends on the willingness of private companies to make large-scale investments, so it cannot be guaranteed. German Chancellor Scholz explained at the launch ceremony: "The public sector alone will not be able to fill the huge gaps we face in many parts of the world." The White House added, "This will only be the beginning", and the United States and its G7 countries also intend to Bring in “hundreds of billions of additional capital” from other like-minded partners, multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and more.

Biden claimed that this proves that “democracies” can finance infrastructure with fewer strings attached, “allowing communities around the world to see for themselves the concrete benefits of working with democracies.” "I want to be clear, this is not aid or charity, this is an investment that will pay off for everyone, including the American people and the people of all of our countries."

In addition, European Commission President von der Leyen said on the same day that Europe will raise 300 billion euros (about 340 billion US dollars) on the initiative and will listen closely to the opinions of relevant countries. She said the G7 wanted to show "developing partners that they have a choice". “There is no doubt that the Belt and Road Initiative has been around for several years, it has spent a lot of cash, it has done a lot of investment, and we came here after years of their investment. But I would say that it is definitely still It's not too late. And I'm not even sure if it's too late."

Fighting against substitution will eventually fail

At present, among the G7 countries, only France and Italy have signed the Belt and Road Initiative. Among them, Italy signed a memorandum of understanding with China as early as 2019, becoming the first G7 country to join the Belt and Road Initiative. In February 2022, China and France signed a list of the fourth round of demonstration projects for third-party market cooperation in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and other places. One hundred million U.S. dollars.

It is worth noting that at the G7 summit in June 2021, the Biden administration also pointed its finger at China and launched a "Build Back Better World" (B3W) initiative, which is considered to be a response to the Belt and Road Initiative. respond. But the plan was nearly aborted due to divisions among Democrats. Biden pledged at the time to invest billions of dollars "to meet the enormous infrastructure needs of low- and middle-income countries," with a particular focus on tackling climate, digital infrastructure, gender equality and health. However, about a year after the plans were announced, the total value of the related projects was only $6 million.

On June 17, 2022, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in response to relevant infrastructure initiatives that global infrastructure construction requires countries to work together, support and complement each other, rather than confront and replace each other. The relevant U.S. initiative ignores the common aspirations of all countries for common development, cooperation and win-win results, engages in zero-sum games and vigorously provokes confrontation, which is unpopular.

Wang Wenbin pointed out that China believes that there is a broad space for cooperation in the field of global infrastructure, and there is no problem that various related initiatives will compete with each other or replace each other. What the world needs is to build bridges, not to tear them down; to connect, not to decouple and build walls; China welcomes all initiatives that will help bring together strengths and promote global infrastructure construction. Any attempt to advance geopolitics in the name of infrastructure development is unpopular and will not succeed.Editor/XuNing