China’s pledge to the world is that it will create a “community with a shared future for mankind”. But a new study shows that sharing is no more than an afterthought as it rolls out an ambitious programme to build transport infrastructure across Eurasia.
The study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think-tank, reveals that 89 per cent of the contractors in China-funded transport infrastructure projects in 34 Asian and European countries were Chinese companies, leaving only 11 per cent for contractors from elsewhere.
The discrepancy challenges the rhetoric that Beijing has used to promote its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a signature policy of Xi Jinping, China’s president, which seeks to build infrastructure and win friends in some 70 countries around the world.