US President has suggested founding an initiative from “democratic” countries to rival China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative in a call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Joe Biden suggests a rival plan to ‘Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) amid a row over sanctions against abuses targeting the Uyghur minority in China’s northwestern Xinjiang. Talking to reporters, the US leader said Beijing’s influence has grown in some nations in recent years through loans and projects under the BRI. All these aspects are raising concerns among regional powers and Western nations and spiking tensions between the Asian power and the West.
“I suggested we should have, essentially, a similar initiative coming from the democratic states, helping those communities around the world that, in fact, need help,” Biden said on Friday.
In a period from 2000 to 2018, 23.1 percent of the $251 billion invested by China’s two biggest policy banks on overseas energy projects was spent on coal projects. During the phone call, Biden and Johnson, did not mention the US president’s proposal for a Western response to BRI, but discussed imposing sanctions on “human rights violators” in Xinjiang.
