China and the U.S., Encounter of Two Strategies

By: Hamid Reza Naghashian

There is a Persian proverb whose English equivalent is “fighting like cat and dog” which has today become universal and it is mostly and properly applicable to the condition of the U.S. and China after the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

Jonathan E. Hillman in an article published at the website of the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies has said when China’s President Xi Jinping was unveiling his foreign policy flagship said, “The goal behind the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is to make the economic ties closer, mutual cooperation deeper, and space of development broader. Instead, it has made developing countries’ debt unstainable, mutual suspicion deeper, and the space of development more polluted.”

That Hillman through what glasses is looking at China’s strategy and President Xi’s remarks, of course is his own business, and perhaps it lays the ground for the spread of hostility for escaping forward of the White House in the current economic condition of the U.S. because Washington has tried to slow the BRI juggernaut by highlighting its dangers, but on environmental issues.

The United States has put forward its vision for a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” which waxes poetic about improving the “environment” for business, investment, and procurement. Although this plan is progressing with lower pace to be materialized and operationalized, it has improved the process of trade encounter and lays the ground better for the convergence of the countries at the edge of this geography with the U.S. and mainly with the West.

But the Donald Trump administration’s weakness on the environment is limiting cooperation with partners and allies to provide alternatives to Chinese projects.

In November 2019, the Trump administration announced the Blue Dot Network with Australia and Japan, an effort for certifying infrastructure projects that meet agreed quality standards. However, it is struggling to get other partners to join. European countries want the Blue Dot Network to be green. Partners and allies are waiting for the United States to catch up.

A year ago, the EU and Japan announced the “Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity and Quality Infrastructure” whose focus on sustainability wisely includes environmental issues but the U.S. plan has no appendix. Of course, not all countries have institutions that allow grassroots organizations (NGOs) to effectively push back and revise their decisions. Some governments are willing to sacrifice environmental protection for lower project costs. Perhaps the White House takes advantage of this option.

In encounter with expansionist policies and creating hurdles for Chinese projects by the U.S. and its allies in the region, China continues resolvedly developing its investments in the region and even recently Bank of China has announced that by the end of June it has earmarked over $140b in the Belt and Road Initiative and major part of the money has been spent as the money has been financed in over 600 important mega projects in the region.

According to the very statement of Bank of China, in recent years and constantly with reliance on China’s long-term strategy for the next three-decades, some important investments have been made in the economies of the economic road of “Silk Road and the 21st Maritime Silk Road”.

Regardless of construction and developing Gwadar Port in Pakistan which is according to most people it will become the second Dubai, some institutions have been set up in 24 countries, mainly in those participating countries in the region. To finance these institutions since five years ago, Bank of China, which is the fourth biggest bank of China in terms of investment and properties, has issued and sold five times bonds for this project in seven different national forex and sold them whose total value in October stood at $14.6b.

China’s determination in developing its ties with the countries in the region will undoubtedly put Washington in the bottleneck of losing the strategic presence, and the only option left for the White House will be to put aside its stubbornness in imposing sanctions and to have serious oil investment with cooperation of Iran in the Persian Gulf which can boost the West’s rather measurable share in encountering China’s strategy. Of course, contradictory approaches in the West, even among the American political parties, hamper making a key and sustainable decision.

  By: Hamid Reza Naghashian