Posted on 11/08/2017 8:59:50 AM PST by snarkpup
U.S. President Donald Trump was in Japan on November 5 and 6, the first stop on his week-long Asia tour. Unsurprisingly, North Korea was a major focus of discussions between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yet while the question of how Washington and Tokyo will combat North Korea’s nuclear ambitions drew headlines, another potentially significant development went largely overlooked: The United States and Japan unveiled their governments’ joint effort to offer an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The BRI is China’s plan to build infrastructure (from roads and railways to telecommunications and energy links) stretching from eastern Asia to western Europe. In the process, China will be forging closer economic and political links with nearly every country on the Eurasian continent – leading many in the United States to view the BRI as a geopolitical plot rather than the “win-win” effort China insists it is. In the past, U.S. officials have spoken disparagingly, if obliquely, about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as my colleague Ankit Panda reported back in October. Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “in a globalized world, there are many belts and many roads, and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating ‘one belt, one road.’”
(Excerpt) Read more at thediplomat.com ...
The following article from a Turkish newspaper seems to be a fairly balanced explanation of China's policy:
Why did the Romans build roads?
I propose Belt And Suspenders, because you can’t be too careful.
The Greater Eurasian Co-Prosperity Sphere
I read that article and basically think it’s DOA.
There are insurmountable obstacles to getting that thing built.
- $5 trillion dollars.
- Countries, regions and tribes that will never allow such a project to pass through their territory.
- No route(s) that have any basis in existing traffic. Even the interstates and railroads follow rivers, valleys and what not. No road from China to Europe, if it doesn’t cross Russia, could do so.
- The extortion and terrorism that would exist during construction and on an ongoing basis would make sections of that route untenable. It’s not like a sea lane where you can sink a ship. Pirates would just melt into the environment.
Hey, let them try, their $5,000,000,000,000 dollars.
I think Belt and Road was Ted Kennedy’s favorite drinking game.
No, that was belt, road and pond. And Teddy was a natural.
CC
I am not sure even the Chinese know exactly what “OBOR” will be.
Xi jinping has proven to everyone that China is done “reforming.” They will of course have a large private sector, and even the many massive state-run industries will face “the market” - but the CCP and Chinese Government will remain firmly in control of all policy.
As such, they will continue to produce a lot of stuff communists and central planners love - steel, cement, ships, trucks, etc... this needs to go somewhere, and China’s neighbors will get it cheap - with some strings attached, of course. that is OBOR.
They are going to need lots and lots of oil to run that infrastructure.
Hmmmm. . . Go around the west end of the Himalayas to Iran then on to the Persian Gulf.
Maybe with a 200 million man army?
“As such, they will continue to produce a lot of stuff communists and central planners love - steel, cement, ships, trucks, etc...”
You forgot cars, bullet trains, computing, electronics, appliances, internet commerce, quantum communications, nuclear power, solar, spaceships etc.
That’s rhetorical right? ;-)
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