Is the BRI a way for China to reshape international aid policy?
countries worldwide have joined the BRI allowing China to increase its investment in the form of bilateral loans for large infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, airports, power plants and telecommunication networks.
By Turkan Omari In the form of financial aid with development ambitions, China is increasingly becoming a donor the size of the US, the largest bilateral donor in the world. With the BRI allowing for developing countries to receive investment without ideological strings attached, is China changing foreign aid as we know it? It was in October 2013 that Chinese President Xi Jinping first unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The initiative aims to connect Asia with Africa and Europe through land and sea corridors to improve regional integration, increase trade and achieve economic cooperation with other regions. The Belt and Road Initiative is the largest infrastructure project of the 21st century and many of the routes correspond to the ancient Silk Road, which was used to transport spices and fabrics between China, Middle East and Europe. Today, 138
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However, there are some major concerns about how the BRI investment strategy will affect international aid policy. Instead of cheap credit, BRI investments often come with market interest rates, with shorter repayment periods and loans approved by government development banks or commercial banks. Yet, there are countries like India that are granting loans with cheap credits and according to indian senior analysts the Indian loans are demand-driven, and respond to the needs of the people without imposing debt-traps or long-term dependency like the BRI-loans have shown to do. Additionally BRI in comparison to the Multilateral development Bank that offers stable, low-cost and long-term loans for various projects within developing countries. The BRI loans primarily seek to make profits of the granted loans at the expense of the recipient country falling under the debt-trap where they are unable to repay the loans in time that also undermines their sovereignty. Additionally according to CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) the BRI-loans also violate several international leading best practices involving procure-
