Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
G7 to counter China's belt and road with infrastructure
project - senior US official
Fri., June 11, 2021, 11:00 p.m.
By Steve Holland
CARBIS BAY, England, June 12 (Reuters) - The Group of Seven
rich nations will announce on Saturday a new global infrastructure plan as a
response to China's belt and road initiative, a senior official in U.S.
President Joe Biden's administration said.
The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the United States would also push the other G7 leaders for "concrete action on forced labour" in China, and to include criticism of Beijing in their final communique
"This is not just about confronting or taking on China," the official said. "But until now we haven't offered a positive alternative that reflects our values, our standards and our way of doing business."
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure scheme launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping involving development and investment initiatives that would stretch from Asia to Europe and beyond.
According to a Refinitiv database, as of mid-last year, more than 2,600 projects at a cost of $3.7 trillion were linked to the initiative, although the Chinese foreign ministry said last June that about 20% of projects had been seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March, Biden said he had suggested to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the three-day G7 leaders' summit in southwest England, that democratic countries should develop their own rival scheme.
The U.S. official said until now, the West had failed to offer a positive alternative to the "lack of transparency, poor environmental and labour standards, and coercive approach" of the Chinese government that had left many countries worse off.
"So tomorrow we’ll be announcing ‘build back better for the world,’ an ambitious new global infrastructure initiative with our G7 partners that won’t just be an alternative to the B and I (Belt and Road)," the official said.
In talks, Biden will also press the other leaders to make clear that they believe forced labour practices were an affront to human dignity and "an egregious example of China’s unfair economic competition" to show that they were serious about defending human rights.
"We’re pushing on being specific on areas like Xinjiang where forced labour is taking place and where we have to express our values as a G7," the official said of the final communique to be issued at the end of the summit on Sunday,
There were no specifics on how the global infrastructure scheme would be funded. The plan would involve raising hundreds of billions in public and private money to help close a $40 trillion infrastructure gap in needy countries by 2035, the official said
The aim was to work with Congress to supplement existing development financing "with the hope that together with G7 partners, the private sector and other stakeholders we soon be collectively catalyzing hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries that need it".
Translation
路透英國卡比斯灣 6 月 12 日 - 美國總統喬·拜登 (Joe Biden) 政府的一名高級官員表示，七國集團 (G7) 將於週六宣布一項新的全球基礎設施計劃，以回應中國的“一帶一路”倡議。
這位不願透露姓名的官員對記者說，美國還將推動其他七國集團領導人在中國採取“針對強迫勞動的具體行動”，並將對北京的批評納入最終公報。
這位官員說:“這不僅只是對抗或抗衡中國”; “但直到現在，我們還沒有提出積極替代方案, 以供反映我們的價值觀、標準和做事的方式。”
中國的“一帶一路倡議” (BRI) 是習近平主席於 2013 年發起的一項耗資數万億美元的基礎設施計劃，涉及從亞洲延伸到歐洲及其他地區的發展和投資計劃。
已有100多個國家與中國簽署了在鐵路、港口、公路和其他基礎設施等“一帶一路”項目中合作的協議。
根據 Refinitiv 數據庫，截至去年年中，仍有耗資 3.7 萬億美元的2,600 多個項目與該計劃相關, 儘管中國外交部去年 6 月表示約有 20% 的項目受到 COVID-19 大流行 的嚴重影響。
今年 3 月，拜登表示，他曾向在英格蘭西南部舉辦為期三天的七國集團領導人峰會的英國首相約翰遜 (Boris Johnson) 建議, 民主國家應該制定自己計劃與對手競爭。
這位美國官員表示，迄今為止，西方未能為中國政府的“缺乏透明度、糟糕的環境和勞工標準以及強制措施”提供積極的替代方案，這些做法使許多國家的境況變得更糟。
這位官員說:“因此，明天我們將宣布 “為世界重建得更好”，這是一項與我們的
G7 合作夥伴一起, 雄心勃勃的新全球基礎設施倡議，這將不僅僅是
B R I（一帶一路）的替代方案”。
在會談中，拜登還將敦促其他領導人明確表示，要共同認為強迫勞動行為是對人類尊嚴的侮辱，是“中國不公平經濟競爭的一個惡劣例子”，表明他們對捍衛人權是認真的。
這位官員在談到將在周日峰會結束時發佈的最終公報時說：“我們正在持續捍衛在新疆等具體發生強迫勞動的地區，我們必須對哪些地區表達我們作為 G7 的價值觀” 。
有關於如何為全球基礎設施計劃提供資金的具體細節並未見到。這位官員說，該計劃將涉及籌集數千億公共和私人資金，到2035 年幫助縮小貧困國家達40 萬億美元的基礎設施缺口。
其目的是與國會合作補充現有的發展融資，“希望在與
G7 合作夥伴、私營部門和其他利益相關者一起下，我們很快將共同為需要它的中低收入國家催化數千億美元的基礎設施投資”。
So, China’s Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) is a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure project that help
other countries to build infrastructure. The action proposed by the US reminds
me about the “Marshall Plan” initiated by the American for the economic benefit
of European countries immediately after WWII.
Note: The Marshall Plan, formally known as the European
Recovery Program, (April 1948–December 1951), was a U.S.-sponsored program
designed to rehabilitate the economies of 17 western and southern European
countries in order to create stable conditions in which democratic institutions
could survive due to the hardship caused by WWII. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Marshall-Plan)
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