“The G7 group of rich nations has agreed plans to set up an alternative to China’s belt and road initiative as part of a broad push back against Beijing covering human rights, supply chains, support for Taiwan and demands to reveal more about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic,” reports the Guardian.

“The EU is also pressing the US to back a legally binding code of conduct for the South China Sea that Beijing has been negotiating with regional powers.”

Biden is eager to build international cooperation efforts that can help to limit the spread of Chinese influence in developing nations. This is a complete reversal from the xenophobic “America First” policies of the prior administration. Nonetheless, some European leaders, including Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, are anxious about engaging in efforts that may seem too confrontational with China, and potentially limit Chinese investment in their own countries.

““This is not just about confronting or taking on China,” a US official said. “But until now we haven’t offered a positive alternative that reflects our values, our standards and our way of doing business.” The officials said the Build Back Better World(B3W) would be “an ambitious new global infrastructure initiative with our G7 partners” that would not only be an alternative to [China’s belt and road initiative. 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 Chinese schemes have been criticised, often on contested evidence, for tying up developing countries in crippling debt that leaves them politically beholden to China. Some academics say there are isolated examples of debt enchainment, but the secrecy surrounding many of the contracts makes it hard to judge. According to a Refinitiv database, more than 2,600 projects with a value of $3.7tn were linked to the initiative as of the middle of last year, although the Chinese foreign ministry said last June that about 20% of projects had been seriously affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.”