The BRI is all about China with any benefits to countries outside China being
secondary concern, IMO, and the best way to judge its utility is to monitor China's GDP;
not to cherrypick its apparent failures outside China.
Given the magnitude of the project (the biggest the world has ever seen) then
its success or failure will be evident; not dependant on a US biased Forbes
article or CIA led economic scud attacks on it from the outside.
Here are some images of BRI projects"
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/belt-and-road-initiative.htmlThe purpose of the BRI is to connect China in the most efficient way
possible via sea, road, rail, air & the internet to its future customers
and suppliers which excludes the USA and/or its allies . We have
been given the opportunity to join but we have rejected that so , IMO,
China will eventually cut us out entirely out of its supply chain once
the BRI is mature & China develops alternative/friendly suppliers.
We elected a Government that decided on classifying China as our
greatest security threat/enemy so it is nieve to think that that wont
have repercussions both economically and politically.
IMO, it is now what it is and our challenge is how do we adapt
to China's hostile reaction to us. It is understandable that the CCP
would react negatively to our Government & PM who backed the US
objective of trying to stymie China's economic growth in the hope that
that wil,l over time, create economic turmoil in China leading to the
collapse of China and its CCP in a similar way that the US firewalled
the USSR which led to that country's economic implosion .
So we have to be real here, IMO. and the way ahead for Aus is
to diversify remaining trade away from China and at the same time develop/
downstream process our own raw resources needed by China so
that instead of selling iron ore, Met cal, LNG & bauxite to China, that
we sell Aussie value added steel
and aluminium products to emerging economies, the USA and the
remaining pro-USA consumer markets.
IMO our relationship with China is like pregnancy; there's no half & half.
IMO mickey mouse globally portable businesses such as hi-tech,
IT, pharma etc wont do it for Aus because once they are cashflow positive
they will either be gobbled up by multinationals or migrate overseas
to low tax/low labour costs jurisdictions.This has been the history of
most of these projects.
In summary, the BRI is designed to divide the world economically;
those who are with China and those who are against it and, as of yet,
the USA and its allies (incl Aus) have not yet devised an economic/trade
blueprint to advance the economies of the rest to counter the BRI; just negative criticisms
China is a growing/command economy ruled by the CCP and unlike
our 'free market" model, China can change & implement economic
and trade policy instantly while we have to hem/haw for years so that
we dont offend multinationals and/or big business. Keep in mind, for example,
if ScoMo stopped iron ore & met coals exports to China, the US shareholders
of RIO, BHP, FMG, Glencore, American Allied Coal, Peabody etc (most of our coal & iron ore
is foreign owned) can sue the Australian Government for loss. Chinese companies
can't do that in China.
Apart from China's GDP growth, its foreign reserves growth is a good indication of
the success of the BRI and the Chinese economy generally in the shorter term, IMO:
"
China's foreign exchange reserves,theworld's largest,increasedin April from a month earlier, official data showed on Friday, astheU.S. dollar weakened.Reservesrose by $28.15 billion to $3.198 trillion, data fromthecentral bank showed.7 May 2021"
Now that we are "out in the cold", its time to devise our own economic plans rather than rely on the USA or an emerging India to bail us out.
It is rather pathetic for ScoMo to be skiting to the G7 how well Aus has done over the past year when that was on borrowed money; not
good financial management; Its a kind of like a welfare recipient with a maxed out credit card showing off the new set of wheels,...eh?.
