China’s Bridge and Road Initiative, BRI, first announced in 2013, is reaching 10 years old. What have been achieved in a decade?

The achievements under three broad categories:
Infrastructures, Energy, Agriculture

Infrastructures
Besides bridges and roads, there are railways, ports, airports, dams, tunnels, communication systems, even aerospace set-ups.

Energy
Green energy such as solar and wind.

Agriculture
Agricultural technology to farm new crops and improve crop yield.

These have aided the development of many un- or under-developed or developing parts of the world from Europe to Mid-East to Africa, Asia and South America.

It has not been easy. The BRI faces demonisations by the US-led West and its allies from the very beginning of its inception.

“That’s the Chinese threat going global”,
“It’s Chinese Colonisation of the World”,
“The Chinese is taking over the world,”

the most demonic of which is to refer to projects under the Initiative as “debt-traps”.

These demonisations, coupled with opposition politics in democracies, caused some countries to discontinue their BRI projects. There are also those who challenged the US-led West to start its own initiative instead of feeling a pain in its arse about the Chinese BRI. It did. In the G7 Summit Meeting in 2021, the US initiated the Build Back Better World (B3W) Initiative. In the G7 meeting in 2022, the B3W was renamed as Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). From the very beginning, the sleepy and senile US President turns it into a competition of political ideologies. According to him, it’s about Autocracy vs Democracy, and How Democracy Will Triumph. Since then, there have been many commitments and announcements made and agreements signed but nothing much beyond these. This is symptomatic of what ails the US-led West today. It is this: It cannot carry out long term development at home or abroad, it can only spew political ideologies and values. All these under the leadership of an old and senile US President who can hardly talk and walk. How then can the US-led West be expected to walk the talk? There’s more danger ahead. What will happen after the current senile Presidency in the US?

Meanwhile, the Chinese eschew political ideology and concentrate on the pragmatics of real development. Their BRI continues to march ahead with increasing number of successfully completed projects around the world. Two recent accomplishments are the High Speed Rail in Laos and Indonesia. In comparison, the US own HSR , initiated decades ago, after going through several Presidencies, continues to experience delay and budget overrun, with no end in sight. So too India’s HSR under a Japanese-Indian joint venture. Now India has initiated the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) under the auspices of the PGII. This is to compete with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC) which India opposes. If India can’t even complete a HSR at home, how can it be expected to lead in the creation of an international economic corridor? The world can see that between China and the US-led West and allies, the former can get things done while the latter can only meet and talk political ideologies.

That's how things will continue to be – the Chinese build and build, the US-led West and allies talk and talk.

On Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 4:34:41 AM UTC, frodo sam0 wrote:
> China’s Bridge and Road Initiative, BRI, first announced in 2013, is reaching 10 years old. What have been achieved in a decade?
>
>
> The achievements under three broad categories:
> Infrastructures, Energy, Agriculture
>
>
> Infrastructures
> Besides bridges and roads, there are railways, ports, airports, dams, tunnels, communication systems, even aerospace set-ups.
>
> Energy
> Green energy such as solar and wind.
>
> Agriculture
> Agricultural technology to farm new crops and improve crop yield.
>
>
> These have aided the development of many un- or under-developed or developing parts of the world from Europe to Mid-East to Africa, Asia and South America.
>
> It has not been easy. The BRI faces demonisations by the US-led West and its allies from the very beginning of its inception.
>
> “That’s the Chinese threat going global”,
> “It’s Chinese Colonisation of the World”,
> “The Chinese is taking over the world,”
>
> the most demonic of which is to refer to projects under the Initiative as “debt-traps”.
>
> These demonisations, coupled with opposition politics in democracies, caused some countries to discontinue their BRI projects. There are also those who challenged the US-led West to start its own initiative instead of feeling a pain in its arse about the Chinese BRI. It did. In the G7 Summit Meeting in 2021, the US initiated the Build Back Better World (B3W) Initiative. In the G7 meeting in 2022, the B3W was renamed as Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). From the very beginning, the sleepy and senile US President turns it into a competition of political ideologies. According to him, it’s about Autocracy vs Democracy, and How Democracy Will Triumph. Since then, there have been many commitments and announcements made and agreements signed but nothing much beyond these. This is symptomatic of what ails the US-led West today. It is this: It cannot carry out long term development at home or abroad, it can only spew political ideologies and values. All these under the leadership of an old and senile US President who can hardly talk and walk. How then can the US-led West be expected to walk the talk? There’s more danger ahead. What will happen after the current senile Presidency in the US?
>
> Meanwhile, the Chinese eschew political ideology and concentrate on the pragmatics of real development. Their BRI continues to march ahead with increasing number of successfully completed projects around the world. Two recent accomplishments are the High Speed Rail in Laos and Indonesia. In comparison, the US own HSR , initiated decades ago, after going through several Presidencies, continues to experience delay and budget overrun, with no end in sight. So too India’s HSR under a Japanese-Indian joint venture. Now India has initiated the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) under the auspices of the PGII. This is to compete with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC) which India opposes. If India can’t even complete a HSR at home, how can it be expected to lead in the creation of an international economic corridor? The world can see that between China and the US-led West and allies, the former can get things done while the latter can only meet and talk political ideologies.
>
> That's how things will continue to be – the Chinese build and build, the US-led West and allies talk and talk.

The Chinese saying 是煮熟的鸭子嘴硬 meaning all is quote dead except the mouth is left unchanged.