The Group of so called seven richest democracies in the world are meeting in Southwestern England, to discuss amongst other things CHINA.
China, the world’s second biggest economy, whose $13.4 trillion GDP is bigger than those of Japan ($4.97 trillion), Germany ($4.00 trillion) and United Kingdom ($2.83 trillion) combined is not in physically at the meeting but they are in all sense part of the meeting.
At the meeting on Saturday, the leaders of the countries in the G7 group sought to to counter China’s growing influence by offering developing nations an infrastructure plan that would rival President XI Jinping’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.
The G7 countries are; the United States of America, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Italy.
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In 1979, China’s economy was smaller than that of Italy, but after opening to foreign investment and introducing market reforms, it has become the world’s second-largest economy and is a global leader in a range of new technologies.
Chinese leader Xi Jingpin launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) scheme in 2013. It involves development and Investment initiatives that would stretch from Asia to Europe and beyond.
More than 100 countries have signed agreements with China to cooperate in BRI projects like railways, ports, highways and other infrastructure.
According to a Refinitiv database, as of mid-last year, more than 2,600 projects at a cost of $3.7 trillion were linked to the BRI, although the Chinese foreign ministry said last June that about 20% of projects had been seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Critics of China’s BRI scheme, mostly the western democracies vis-a-vis the G7 countries say Xi’s plan to create a modern version of the ancient Silk Road trade route to link China with Asia, Europe and beyond is a vehicle for the expansion of Communist China.
Beijing says such doubts betray the “imperial hangover” of many Western powers that humiliated China for centuries.
It is the believe amongst “Western” countries that until now, the West had failed to offer a positive alternative to the “lack of transparency, poor environmental and labour standards, and coercive approach” of the Chinese government that had left many countries worse off.
In their meeting in the seaside resort of Carbis Bay England, the leaders of the self acclaimed richest democracies appear to have found the alternative to China to offer to the world.
The alternative is a $40 trillion plan known as Build Back Better World (B3W).
U.S President Joe Biden and the other G7 leaders hope their plan will provide a transparent infrastructure partnership to help narrow the $40 trillion needed by developing nations by 2035, the White House said.
“This is not just about confronting or taking on China,” a senior official in Biden’s administration said. “But until now we haven’t offered a positive alternative that reflects our values, our standards and our way of doing business.”
The G7 and its allies will use the initiative to mobilise private-sector capital in areas such as climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality, the White House added.
It was not immediately clear how exactly the plan would work or how much capital it would ultimately allocate.
The White House said that as part of the G7 plan, he United States will work with the U.S. Congress to supplement existing development financing and to “collectively catalyze hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment”.
It is not particularly clear how U.S Republican politicians who are already weary of President Biden spending plans will jump onboard this $40 trillion plan.
The United States will be expected as usual to bring 50% or more of this money.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
