China’s huge Asian investments fail to buy it soft power
They still provoke as much suspicion and resentment as gratitude
ANOTHER TRIUMPH for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)! That part of the Chinese media aimed at readers abroad made much of the news that late last month a Chinese company had completed laying the track for a high-speed railway between Jakarta and Bandung in Indonesia. The railway, for which China won a contract in 2015, is what its media call an “exemplary” project. Criticism of it is dismissed as “Western slander”, of the sort that has dogged the BRI as a whole. But in fact the railway illustrates the suspicion and resentment that Chinese projects often face in the countries where they are built.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Bad blood on the tracks”
From the April 8th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
Prabowo Subianto is drastically cutting Indonesia’s budget
The cash saved is going into a new fund he controls
The election in Tajikistan is unlikely to be democratic
Instead it will be a way for Emomali Rahmon, the president, to cement his rule
How overt religiosity became cool in India
The Maha Kumbh Mela shows how tradition has become trendy
The trouble with ancient Indians
India is rapidly ageing. It’s in for some surprises
Singapore’s leader of the opposition is convicted of lying
The city-state’s usually dull politics have taken a turn
Only Asia can help America counter China’s shipbuilding prowess
But will Donald Trump let it?