Belt and Road Initiative not a ‘Chinese plot’: Xi tries to allay concerns

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy plan to build a new “Silk Road” of infrastructure and trade links between China and Eurasia is not a “Chinese plot”, Xi said on Wednesday.

Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, unveiled in 2013, aims to bolster a sprawling network of land and sea links with Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

At a summit last May, Xi pledged $126 billion for the plan, but has failed to overcome suspicion in Western capitals, where officials suspect the professed desire to spread prosperity in the region is foremost an attempt to assert Chinese influence.

“The Belt and Road Initiative is not a Chinese plot, as some people internationally have said,” Xi told a gathering at the annual meeting of the Chinese Boao Forum for Asia in the southern province of Hainan. “It is neither the post-World War Two Marshall Plan, nor is it a Chinese conspiracy. If you had to (call it something), it’s an ‘overt plot’,” he added.