Text/Walking Stuka
The G7 summit officially opened. Biden made a "big move" right away: announcing that it would raise US$600 billion within five years to provide funds for infrastructure construction in developing countries. This is the “Global Infrastructure Partnership” that U.S. officials have highlighted previously, a new plan that targets China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.
According to media reports, Biden announced this ambitious new plan at the "G7" summit being held in Bavaria, Germany, and announced that the plan will focus on key areas such as clean energy, health systems, gender equality, and information and communications technology. Although he did not mention "China" in his statement, everyone knew that he was targeting "China"; he also declared that he wanted the world to see that "democratic countries" provide infrastructure funding with few strings attached. , let all countries see more benefits of cooperation with "democratic countries"; European Commission President Von der Leyen also said, "G7 Let developing countries know that they can have better choices." .
The "G7" summit described this plan as lavish, but the " New York Times " poured cold water on it first. It pointed out in its comments that "Although Biden has been trying to unite allies to jointly fight China, this initiative It is likely to expose the old problem of Western allies being unable to unite as one."
When it comes to "infrastructure maniacs", China ranks second, and no one dares to rank first. Previously, the website of the American "Foreign Affairs" magazine reminded Biden that the United States cannot copy China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative and should not try to defeat China in China's game.
According to Biden and von der Leyen’s speeches, the United States will be responsible for raising 200 billion US dollars, and the European Union will be responsible for raising about 300 billion euros (approximately 340 billion US dollars); however, some analysts pointed out: This time G7 Group announced that it will raise The US$600 billion will not be allocated from public funds of governments of various countries, but through grants, financing and private investment, of which private investment will be the main source of funds. German Prime Minister Scholz said at the launching ceremony Explaining that “Government public funding alone cannot bridge the huge gap”.
But the problem is, how to attract private investment, you can only rely on profits! However, when investing in infrastructure and , the pursuit of profits is putting the cart before the horse - as we all know, the main significance of infrastructure projects is to provide high-quality public goods, and its service nature is greater than its profit nature; China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative has never pursued profits from a single project. Instead, we obtain overall benefits through a package of cooperation solutions. For example, if China invests in a highway, the highway itself may not be profitable, but the logistics convenience it brings will expand the scale of trade and thereby obtain higher profits--so Biden's "big plan" has been from the beginning. A huge premise is set up.
In fact, Biden’s idea is based on lessons learned from past mistakes, and it’s only been a year. At the "G7 Summit" in 2021, Biden also proposed a similar "Building a Better World" initiative. At that time, he boasted that he would invest billions of dollars, and the main method was to attract private investment. By this year, this initiative has basically It was announced that it was over, because except for the White House allocation of 6 million US dollars, no other funds have been received.
Through this example, we can probably see the future fate of the "Global Infrastructure Partnership Program". With the appetite for this $600 billion fund, we even think that Washington and Brussels may know that this plan will not work, so they simply take advantage of it.
When it comes to getting rich through hard work and alleviating poverty, we are undoubtedly a global role model; the United States is not good at construction, which is an area that China is good at. Many American experts have reminded the White House not to deliberately imitate China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative Don't try to compete with the other party's creativity in their BGM; but Biden did it anyway, probably in order to bring some "political achievements" back to the country and boast them to voters in the mid-term elections.
But when it comes to practical matters, the whole world knows: Then we still have to look at China!
