Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has launched a thinly veiled attack on President Xi’s global infrastructure programme, warning that “bad deals” threaten to burden developing nations with debt.
In a speech in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, Blinken insisted that Washington wants to avoid conflict in Asia, but denounced China’s “aggressive actions” in the South China Sea, where it has constructed military bases on islands claimed by other countries.
“We’re hearing increasing concerns . . . about what happens when infrastructure isn’t done right,” he said at the beginning of a tour of southeast Asia that will also take him to Malaysia and Thailand. “Like when it’s awarded through opaque, corrupt processes, or built by overseas companies that import their own labour, extract resources, pollute the environment, and drive communities into debt.”
Although he did not name China, this was an unmistakable reference to the “Belt and Road Initiative”, a massive programme of Chinese investment in developing countries, many in Asia, the South Pacific and Africa.
According to its supporters, it is a 21st-century Marshall Plan, a benign programme of constructing ports, roads and railways to enable countries across the developing world to trade more easily with the massive and ever-expanding Chinese market.
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To others, it is a form of “debt diplomacy”, a cynical effort to inveigle susceptible countries into taking out loans that they can never repay for impractical and overambitious projects, thus putting them at the mercy of Beijing and its political agenda.
“Countries in the Indo-Pacific want a better kind of infrastructure,” Blinken said. “But many feel it’s too expensive, or they feel pressured to take bad deals on terms set by others rather than no deals at all. So we will work with countries in the region to deliver the high-quality, high-standards infrastructure that people deserve.”
He also set out Washington’s well established emphasis on the “rules-based international order”. He said: “The goal . . . is not to keep any country down. Rather, it’s to protect the right of all countries to choose their own path, free from coercion, free from intimidation. It’s not about a contest between a US-centric region or a China-centric region.”
He repeated warnings about Beijing’s growing military assertiveness in Asia. “There is so much concern, from northeast Asia to southeast Asia, and from the Mekong River to the Pacific Islands, about Beijing’s aggressive actions, claiming open seas as their own, distorting open markets through subsidies to its state-run companies, denying exports or revoking deals for countries whose policies it does not agree with, engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activities.
“Countries across the region want this behaviour to change. We do, too.”
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He said the US would deal with growing insecurity in the region by strengthening alliances and partnerships with friendly governments, including the defence grouping with Australia and Britain known as Aukus.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s foreign minister denounced China for stealing one of the few allies that still formally recognised it as a country. Nicaragua switched its diplomatic allegiance to Beijing last week.
“Losing a diplomatic ally is a very painful thing for us,” Joseph Wu said.
