G7 leaders are trying to compete with the China infrastructure project for the new UK

The Seven Groups (G7) countries have unveiled a significant infrastructure initiative for lower-income countries to tackle the multi-million dollar China Ring and Road Initiative, under the name “New Silk Road”.

As promised to “collectively catalyze” hundreds of billions in infrastructure investments for low- and middle-income countries, G7 leaders said on Saturday they would offer “value-driven, high-level and transparent” cooperation.

The announcement was made when leaders of G7 countries – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Japan – met at the Carbis Bay marine station in south-west England.

The “Build Back Better World” (B3W) project promoted by US President Joe Biden’s administration is right to compete with the Belt and Road initiative, which has been widely criticized for networking small countries that cannot handle debt.

White Houses a statement The initiative aims to “help reduce the need for $ 40 billion in infrastructure in the developing world that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“This is not about confronting or taking over China,” a senior U.S. official said. “This is to offer the world a positive and affirmative alternative.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was a much-needed “important initiative” in Africa, and the nation has large investments in China.

“We can’t sit back and say that China will, but the G7 intends to have a positive agenda for many countries in the world that are still lagging behind … Welcome,” he said.

Speaking at the summit, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic director James Bays said the B3W project is something that U.S. officials are pushing for and that it is “clearly supported” by other G7 leaders.

“They say that [B3W] It will be adapting to the international environment and labor standards, unlike the Belt and Road Initiative, ”Bays said, but noted that despite the ambitious idea, it happened“ too late ”.

“The Belt and Road Initiative has been around for eight years; it is very well developed, in practice it is there. While this is just a dream right now, ”he said.

Bays added that funding for the B3W project remains a daunting question, as “U.S. officials report that journalists have estimated that there is a $ 14 trillion infrastructure gap … by 2035.”

Ryan Patel, a senior fellow at Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, told Al Jazeera that the G7 nations will need time to consolidate the B3W project, “but I think they can provide a competitive alternative” to the China Belt and Road Initiative.

Patel said China and the G7 countries expect to diversify their trading partners, mainly due to the economic downturn associated with coronavirus. “What China does, too [what] other G7 countries are doing it, trying to be more independent, ”he said.

Public statement

While the G7 agreed to work to compete against China, there was less unity to know how the team should take a public stance.

Canada, the United Kingdom and France largely endorsed Biden’s stance, and Germany, Italy and the European Union expressed greater hesitation at the first session of the summit on Saturday, a senior Biden administration official said on condition of anonymity.

White House officials have said Biden wants G7 leaders to speak with one voice against forced labor practices targeting Muslim Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in China.

According to researchers, about a million people (mostly Uyghurs) have been in so-called rehabilitation camps in China’s western Xinjiang region in recent years.

Human rights group Amnesty International in a recent report said Xinjiang has become a “dystopian landscape of hell”.

Chinese authorities have been accused of enforcing forced labor, systematic forced birth control, torture and separating children from parents in prison. Beijing rejects allegations that it is committing crimes.

Biden hopes the accusation will be part of a joint statement released at the end of the summit on Sunday, but some European allies are reluctant to split so forcefully with Beijing.