[Broadly facing criticism about overpriced and superfluous projects, China is reshaping and retooling its grand infrastructure plan, known as the Belt and Road Initiative. But Beijing isn’t retreating from its vision to build a network of ports, rails and roads that puts China at the center of global trade and enhances its geopolitical ambitions.]
By Jane Perlez
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The
East Coast Rail Link project in Bentong, Malaysia, part of China’s Belt and
Road
Initiative, an ambitious global infrastructure program.
Credit
Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times
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BEIJING
— It took only a week for
China’s all-powerful President Xi Jinping to yield. Malaysia had publicly
slammed China for vastly overcharging on a showcase rail project, canceling the
deal.
In a rare admission of Chinese excess, Mr. Xi
replied in a major speech last year that his prized global infrastructure
program would be more cautious, more consultative. This month, China slashed
the cost of the rail by one-third.
Broadly facing criticism about overpriced and
superfluous projects, China is reshaping and retooling its grand infrastructure
plan, known as the Belt and Road Initiative. But Beijing isn’t retreating from
its vision to build a network of ports, rails and roads that puts China at the
center of global trade and enhances its geopolitical ambitions.
Rather, China’s efforts are intended to
present a friendlier face to global leaders, who are gathering this week in
Beijing for a conference to mark the sixth year of the initiative. To show it’s
a more responsible player, China is promising corruption-free, environmentally
conscious ventures. It is also seeking advice from major multinational banks,
asking other countries, such as Japan, to collaborate, and in some cases
scaling back its projects.
“The Belt and Road Initiative will make
tactical adjustments, not strategic,” said Wang Jun, a former director of the
Information Department at the China Center for International Economic
Exchanges.
The initiative, originally billed as a
trillion-dollar venture though trimmed back as the domestic economy weakens, is
a pet project of Mr. Xi’s. He unveiled the idea in a speech at a university in
Kazakhstan soon after assuming office in 2013.
Mr. Xi regards the program as so special that
he directed it be written into the Communist Party Constitution. As he sees it,
the creation of infrastructure abroad to sustain the flow of goods in and out
of China — and possibly military gear in the future — is intrinsic to cementing
the nation’s path to power and competing with the United States.
But the aggressive expansion under Belt and
Road has dented China’s reputation. Some countries complained about unsustainable
debt, while others criticized the overwhelming numbers of Chinese workers
imported for construction.
Last year, Sri Lanka had to give its major
port to China after it could not repay loans. Pakistan gripes about high costs
and onerous debt. New railways in Kenya and Ethiopia have failed to earn a
profit. In Indonesia, a new high-speed railway is way behind schedule.
Against that backdrop, the program has
broadly drawn concerns from officials in Western Europe and the United States.
The Trump administration has called the project predatory.
The scathing critique by the new Malaysian
leader, Mahathir Mohamad, hit China coming from a friend. So China’s tone,
though hardly humble, has been shaded in recent months to be less strident.
“The points made after Mahathir could be
defined as pragmatic retrenchment,” said Shi Yinhong, professor of
international relations at Renmin University. “The tune was somewhat remarkably
different from what was in the propaganda before, and has been maintained.”
When Mr. Xi addresses the conference Friday,
top officials from the United States and India will be absent. The Trump
administration has announced an alternative offering under the revamped
Overseas Private Investment Corporation. India is upset because new
Chinese-built ports on the Indian Ocean make India feel hemmed in by its richer
neighbor and strategic rival.
China scored a substantial victory last month
when Italy signed on to Belt and Road, the first major European country to do
so. The Chinese are likely to make the Italian prime minister a focus of the
gathering, because no other major Western European country is sending a leader.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is
not turning up, either, and the country will be represented by the minister of
transport and infrastructure, Cahit Turhan./ Mr. Erdogan’s absence is seen as a
protest of the forced detention in western China of an estimated one million
Uighurs, a Muslim minority.
In eschewing the program, the United States
and some of its allies have also focused on China’s poor record on human
rights, highlighted by the harsh treatment of the Uighurs.
As he headed to Beijing for the conference,
the secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, was pushed by
Britain, Germany, Turkey, the United States and several other countries to
raise the detentions when he met with Mr. Xi, according to officials from two
nations that spoke to him. China considers Mr. Guterres, a supporter of the
infrastructure program, important for the prestige of the conference, making
him an ideal figure to raise concerns about the detentions.
The United Nations ambassadors told Mr.
Guterres that while he was in Beijing, he could not remain silent about the
Uighurs, the officials said. The ambassadors asked Mr. Guterres to demand the
closing of the detention camps, and requested that he to report back to them on
Mr. Xi’s response.
The United Nations had no immediate comment.
Tangling with Mr. Xi on the Uighurs may not
get quick results, but the pushback on the program has paid off. One
adjustment: an anti-corruption campaign.
The head of China’s Asian Infrastructure and
Investment Bank, which helps finance projects around the world, told a seminar
of Chinese contractors on Monday that they needed to improve their business
practices.
The Beijing-led bank, whose more than 90
members include Western European nations but not the United States, is seen as
a counterweight to the World Bank in Asia, as well as an extension of China’s
economic heft into what has been a traditionally American-influenced region.
“As Chinese contractors, I urge you not to be
involved in any corruption, even if you have to give up some projects,” the
head of the bank, Jin Liqun, said. People in other countries are “still
doubtful” about the Belt and Road Initiative, he said. “As long as we assure
quality, they will welcome the projects.”
In an interview, Mr. Jin said that some
recent Chinese infrastructure projects had “achieved good things” and that
“mistakes had been blown out of proportion.”
To enhance its reputation, China is also
trying to dispatch workers who are better prepared to work in troubled regions.
After attacks in Pakistan, security companies are now training Chinese workers
in antiterror tactics before they deploy.
China’s State Grid, for example, is building
power transmission lines in remote parts of Pakistan. And its workers do safety
training in Beijing — how to avoid getting shot or hurt in a terror attack —
run by a company known as China’s Public Security Guard Training Center.
“Pakistan is the hardest hit by terror
attacks,” said Lu Wei, a security expert at the company. It is also the country
with the biggest Belt and Road program.
China has also sought to work more closely
with other countries, with varying success.
China has reached out to the major
multinational financial institutions, including the World Bank, to help develop
best practices for infrastructure projects. The idea was to form a working
group inside the Chinese bank to jointly consider proposals for Belt and Road,
according to officials from two of the invited institutions.
But at the insistence of the European
Investment Bank, and several of the other institutions, a memorandum of
understanding signed last month to establish the working group was watered
down. It did not even mention Belt and Road, the officials said.
And China has sought help from an unlikely
quarter: Japan. The two countries are competitors in building rails and ports
in underdeveloped countries in Asia, and Japan has been careful not to endorse
the Belt and Road Initiative.
During a visit last fall to Beijing by the
Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, the Chinese broached the idea of working
together on infrastructure. But the Japanese say they are bound by
international standards such as open bidding and fiscal sustainability that
China has ignored. So far, the two sides have not found a common project.
Xiuzhong Wang contributed research.
