Author： Source：The Financial Times Update Time：2015-06-19
China’s commitment to building infrastructure in
countries covered by its “One Belt, One Road” initiative — a scheme to
boost development along ancient “silk road” trading routes between China
and Europe — is revealed by data showing that the lion’s share of
Beijing’s recent overseas lending pledges have been in countries that
lie along the routes.
A study by Grison’s Peak, a boutique investment bank
based in London, shows that the majority of 67 overseas loan commitments
made by Beijing’s largest policy lenders, the China Development Bank
and the China Ex-Im Bank, have been in areas defined by the “One Belt,
One Road” strategy since it was agreed in late 2013.
If loans to regions not included in the strategy —
namely Latin America and west/central Africa — are excluded from
calculations, the proportion of overseas state loans that were directed
to countries on or close to the trading routes is 76 per cent of total
overseas state lending by the institutions during the five quarters
ended in March this year, the Grison’s Peak study shows.
The “One Belt, One Road” strategy, a key policy of
the administration of President Xi Jinping, was first incorporated into
official Communist party documents in late 2013. Its principal aim is to
boost connectivity and commerce between China and 65 countries with a
total population of 4.4bn by building infrastructure and boosting
financial and trade ties.
These aims also come through in the data crunched by
Grison’s Peak. Loans for infrastructure projects, including road, rail
and power schemes, made up 52 per cent of the 67 loans pledged while
trade finance accounted for a further 30 per cent. The value of the 67
loans included in the study was $49.4bn.
The focus on infrastructure is consistent with what
Parag Khanna, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, describes as
China’s strategy to build up “infrastructure alliances” with countries
it regards as important for commercial and strategic reasons.
“Infrastructure is a way of asserting
connectivity . . . as a tool of geopolitical leverage,” Mr Khanna said.
“Infrastructure, particularly railways, has been a tool of extending
influence for a couple of hundred years now, but not necessarily on this
scale.”
“China is winning the new ‘Great Game’ by building
the new silk roads,” Mr Khanna said, referencing the 19th century
rivalry between Russia and Britain for influence in Central Asia.
“The silk road economic belt . . . is not new. There
is 25 years of evolution on these projects. The purpose has always been
the same for China, to smooth the flow of commodities imports and to
smooth the outbound flow of goods,” he added.
Just as in the development assistance programmes led
by western powers and Japan in previous decades, the policy bank loans
extended under the “One Belt, One Road” initiative have mostly been tied
to the involvement of Chinese companies, either as suppliers of
machinery and raw materials or in constructing and operating projects.
Grison’s Peak found that 70 per cent of the loans
pledged were linked to the involvement of a China-based corporation.
While this has been standard for trade finance, it seems now to have
become a standard feature of Chinese state lending to infrastructure
projects overseas as well, the investment bank said.
Lastly, the concessionary nature of Chinese state
lending may be diminishing. Though interest rate details on state loans
overseas are often not disclosed, Grison’s Peak estimates that during
the early stages of the “One Belt, One Road” project, rates “seemed to
average 2 to 2.5 per cent”. More recently, they have been in the region
of 4 to 4.5 per cent, the bank said.
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