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Belt and Road

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All roads lead to Rome

Xi Jinping hopes that his trip to Italy will give the BRI a boost
Mar 22, 2019 (WiC 445)

The sentiment surrounding China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has soured sharply over the last 18 months with headlines about projects that haven’t materialised, loans that don’t look sustainable and recipient nations that want to ...

Malaysian malaise

More negative headlines for China’s BRI
Jan 18, 2019 (WiC 437)

“Light is good from whatever lamp it shines,” is the advice of a Chinese proverb. But a small group behind Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) shrank from the spotlight when the Wall Street Journal alleged improper conduct in China’s ...

Terror in Karachi

The pressure builds on Pakistan corridor plan
Nov 30, 2018 (WiC 434)

On the morning of Friday November 23, three armed men attacked the Chinese consulate in Karachi in Pakistan. They were members of the Baloch Liberation Army, a militant group which wants greater autonomy for Balochistan – a large, resource-rich ...

Battle of the benefactors

Washington is planning a counter-offensive to Belt and Road lending
Nov 2, 2018 (WiC 430)

Earlier this autumn, senior officials from the Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC) went elephant hunting in Sri Lanka. But the executives from the United States’ development finance agency weren’t trying to relive a nineteenth century ...

The host with the most

Mahathir makes trip to China but Belt and Road train row rumbles on
Aug 24, 2018 (WiC 421)

When Mahathir Mohamad visited China for the first time in 1985 – making stops in Beijing and Hangzhou – the Malaysian prime minster brought a 200-strong delegation with him looking to sell goods and services, and invest. It was not an ...

Chinese firms sanguine about trade prospects
Apr 20, 2018 (WiC 405)

After a tumultuous month, there has been some respite from all the talk of trade war this week and the news on Tuesday was that China’s economic growth held steady in the quarter to March, despite Beijing’s war of words with ...

A warning from the IMF on Belt and Road loans
Apr 13, 2018 (WiC 404)

On April Fools’ Day this year, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV ran a report which turned out to be sadly not a hoax story. It detailed the safety violations in the construction of a highway in Gansu province. The road was built in 2011 as ...

Holding all the cards

Laos looks for ways to counterbalance China’s rising economic influence
Dec 1, 2017 (WiC 390)

There are five ‘officially’ Communist countries left in the world and China and Laos are two of them. So perhaps it’s surprising that it had been 11 years since a senior Chinese leader visited the small, landlocked nation. That ...

Dam those deals

Pakistan and Nepal snub Belt and Road projects
Nov 24, 2017 (WiC 389)

It’s been a terrible month for Chinese hydropower projects in South Asia. On November 13 Nepal announced its government was cancelling an agreement with Gezhouba Three Gorges to build a 1,200 megawatt dam across the Budhi Gandaki ...

A Shenzhen for Arabia

Saudi plans $500 billion new city – expect China to play a key role
Nov 3, 2017 (WiC 386)

A month ago the government of Saudi Arabia made a historic decision to allow women to drive. Last week it also announced that females will be allowed into sports stadiums for the first time too. But the female who has been given the most ...

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