Leaders of the G7 industrialised countries are meeting in Cornwall this weekend to discuss vaccines, the pandemic recovery and the climate crisis
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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 US 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.
More than 100 countries have signed agreements with China to cooperate in BRI projects like railways, ports, highways, and other infrastructure.
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 US 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.
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 $40tn infrastructure gap in needy countries by 2035, the official said.
The US plans to push democratic allies on Saturday to publicly call out China for forced labor practices as the Group of Seven leaders gathers at a summit where they will also unveil an infrastructure plan meant to compete with Beijing’s efforts in the developing world.
The provocative proposal is part of President Joe Biden’s escalating campaign to get fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with China in the century ahead, according to two senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans for the seaside summit publicly.
The officials said Biden wanted G-7 leaders to speak out in a single voice against forced labor practices targeting Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities. Biden hopes the denunciation will be part of the joint communique released at the summit’s end, but some European allies have been reluctant to so forcefully split with Beijing.
It may not be clear until the three-day summit ends on Sunday whether the leaders will take that step.
The wealthy nations’ leaders were all smiles and unity as they were welcomed to the summit on Friday by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the freshly raked sand of Carbis Bay for their first gathering since 2019.
