Under its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, China has been expanding its economy’s footprint across Asia and Africa, mostly in low- and middle-income economies. Now the project is aiming to leap into the top league, with Italy considering signing up as the first G7 country. A common European strategy for how to accommodate BRI is overdue.
China’s objective — to tie the Eurasian continent closer together through comprehensive transport and infrastructure links — is a laudable one. Deeper trade and human links could be of benefit to all. But it is naive to ignore BRI’s geostrategic implications. As currently pursued, it goes well beyond the plain economic objective.
There can be no doubt about the fundamentally one-sided nature of BRI. It is designed with China very much at its centre. Beijing is putting forward the financing, often the actual construction, and above all the master plan for the new trade routes — a plan designed with Chinese interests in mind.