The 48th Group of Seven summit started on Sunday in Bavaria, Germany. U.S. President Joe Biden announced the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)
with other G7 countries at the meeting, pledging $200 billion for the
partnership in five years. According to the PGII, the G7 would
collectively mobilize $600 billion for a wide range of infrastructure
projects during the same period.
Apparently
competing with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the investment
heavily emphasizes developing areas like Africa and Southeast Asia, with
which China has long cultivated its relations. Among the investment are
$2 billion for solar projects in Angola, $600 million for the Southeast
Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 6 (SEA-ME-WE 6) submarine
telecommunications cable, and $25 million for small-and-medium-sized
enterprises in West Africa. The other investments include infrastructure
for childcare, internet services, power system, climate sustainability,
and healthcare.
The
three-day G7 summit and the upcoming NATO summit are held days after
the Horn of Africa Peace Conference and BRICS Summit hosted by China.
China’s Global Times commented
that the meetings led by the U.S. are “in stark contrast” to last
week’s BRICS summit, where, according to President Xi Jinping, the
countries “gather not in a closed club or an exclusive circle.”
While the White House claimed
that Ukraine’s war with Russia was at the top of the G7 summit agenda,
it appears that the China challenge is what it wants to address more.
However, whether the infrastructure partnership would deliver remains to
be seen. Biden unveiled the Build Back Better World initiative at the G7 summit a year ago to counter the Belt-and-Road model, and the initiative has reportedly gotten stuck.
Biden’s proposal to cap the price of Russian oil could also be difficult to achieve, as they need to coordinate
with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the most
powerful oil price influencer that is not always aligned with the G7,
and the OPEC+ that includes Russia.
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China holds high-level dialogue among developing countries | China hosted a High-level
Dialogue on Global Development (全球发展高层对话会) on the sidelines of the 14th
BRICS Summit on Saturday. Attendees were BRICS leaders and heads of
governments from potential BRICS+ members — Algeria, Argentina, Egypt,
Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia,
Fiji, Malaysia, and Thailand.
China made a series of promises (Zh/En)
as the chair to help the development of its partners. The promises,
which are much smaller than the U.S. support for PGII in terms of the
amount of the money, focus on creating cooperation mechanisms on a broad
array of issues, including food, health, climate change, and digital
development. However, neither the deadline for delivering these promises
nor how to achieve them is clear.
The
lack of details and time frame of these promises will grant China more
flexibility in execution. However, such flexibility could also mean a
weaker effect. The goodwill of creating a more open global order
addresses the concern of many developing countries, and conferences are
nice to seek common ground. But they do not necessarily translate to
actions to change. How China, as a less powerful state than the U.S.,
supports these countries matters. Winning trust is as important as
enhancing strength for China when doing that.
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