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Will OBOR help China to overcome its economic crisis?

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Will OBOR help China to overcome its economic crisis?
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China caught the world’s eyes with its high-profile global forum on the so-called Belt and Road Initiative in Beijing on 14-15 May 2017. The developmental blueprint, involving about 65 countries, seeks to push through a series of infrastructure and trade projects that boost global economic growth and connect the Asian, African, and European continents.

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged the US $124 billion during the forum to establish China’s leading role in this new globalization effort.

Despite being touted by Chinese news outlets, following the forum censors began to block Chinese from commenting about the initiative on social media. A number of users had been expressing their skepticism about the gigantic international project at a time when China’s economy is struggling with overcapacity, soaring home prices, and inflated credit.

While many Tianya forum users echoed the above dream of surpassing the US and Europe in the global economic order through the Belt and Road Initiative, some in the comment thread pointed to the unresolved economic crisis at home.

Skepticism aside, many Chinese bloggers did discuss the initiative in a positive manner. For example, “Lucky Star No. 1”, writing on the online forum Tianya, explained in simple language how China could reset the global economic order and become a boss with the Belt and Road project (also called “One Belt, One Road”). A translation of his quote is as follows.

Read more: The New World Order: Where China, not the US, will govern!

The core of “One Belt, One Road” is to invest in the infrastructure of surrounding countries and turn them into suppliers of raw material and markets of our products. There’s huge economic gain generated from this leading role in the project and a reasonable return on the investment.

We can see that the investment is huge, the risk is huge, and the return is super huge. Only a super strong economic entity (a necessary condition) equipped with political and military power can take up the initiative. If you don’t have the economic power, the initial investment would drag you down…Likewise, if you don’t have political and military strength, and your fist is not hard enough, you can’t take up the project. History has proven that only the strong country has “friends”. If you are weak, someone can take over.

The strategy is to turn oneself into the boss of the global village rather than the worker.

China’s economic woes
While many Tianya forum users echoed the above dream of surpassing the US and Europe in the global economic order through the Belt and Road Initiative, some in the comment thread pointed to the unresolved economic crisis at home. In the course of writing this post, the comment thread was made inaccessible to unregistered members, perhaps a sign of how sensitive the topic is.

Read more: Why China wants to ‘speed up’ CPEC’s construction?

One person wrote:

The only road leading to the fulfillment of the China’s dream is industrial upgrading, focusing on advanced technological products so that we can step out of the vicious circle of high energy consumption, serious pollution, and low return rate.

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Will OBOR help China to overcome its economic crisis?
 
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