Belt and Road Initiative now more modest yet it has seen China deepen links with Global South

Representatives from up to 130 countries, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban, have arrived in Beijing for a summit marking the tenth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The global infrastructure initiative has become a landmark project for Xi Jinping, who will open the forum in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square on Wednesday.

Mr Xi and Mr Putin are expected to have a bilateral meeting after the opening ceremony, at which both men are likely to speak, along with other leaders. Mr Putin and Mr Orban, the only European Union leader to attend the forum, met in Beijing on Tuesday. “Despite the fact that in the current geopolitical conditions the possibilities for keeping contact and developing relations are very limited, it cannot but cause satisfaction that our ties with many European countries are maintained and developed,” Mr Putin said.

Mr Orban also met Mr Xi, promising to continue to participate in the BRI despite Italy’s decision to leave it later this year. Italian ministers complain that since it joined the BRI in 2019 its imports from China soared but its exports in the other direction remained flat.

Mr Xi conceived of the BRI in 2013 as reviving the old Silk Road and maritime routes that linked Asia, Europe and Africa through a new network of roads, railways, energy pipelines, ports and streamlined border crossings. China has invested more than US$1 trillion in more than 3,000 projects under the initiative, which now extends around the world to Latin America.

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A high-speed railway linking China with Laos, an economic corridor of transport and energy projects with Pakistan and a new port in Sri Lanka cost tens of billions of dollars, much of it in Chinese loans. In some cases the recipients defaulted on the loans, leading to accusations that the BRI was a form of “debt trap diplomacy” which gave China leverage over poorer countries in the Global South.

Beijing rejects the charge, arguing that most BRI countries with debt problems owe more to international lenders than to China. Earlier this month China agreed to restructure loans owed by Sri Lanka and Zambia, avoiding potential embarrassment at this week’s forum.

China has financed fewer big infrastructure projects in recent years, partly because the coronavirus pandemic and a sluggish economic recovery mean there is less cash to spare. Instead the BRI is focusing on smaller projects and China’s vice-premier He Lifeng said on Tuesday that its future lay in the digital economy, smart manufacturing and the green economy. “We encourage companies from all countries to focus on big data, artificial intelligence, ecommerce and new energy, swap ideas and align projects and investments,” he said.

Even if the BRI focuses on more modest projects it remains a central part of a diplomatic strategy that has seen China deepen its links with other parts of the Global South. It is linked to Mr Xi’s Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilisation Initiative.

The BRI helped to extend and deepen China’s links with developing countries, some of which have become important sources of commodities for Chinese industry. But it has also helped China diplomatically and many of its BRI partners tend to vote with Beijing at the United Nations – or at least to avoid censuring it over human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet and the crushing of democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Many such partners joined China in refusing to join the western powers in backing Ukraine after the Russian invasion last year. In recent days China’s call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and its condemnation of the siege of Gaza have again aligned it with most of the Global South.