In Japan, Trump and Abe Offer Alternative to China’s ‘Belt and Road’The Diplomat, Nov 8, 2017, Shannon Tiezzi
U.S. President Donald Trump was in Japan on November 5 and 6, the first stop on his week-long Asia tour. Unsurprisingly, North Korea was a major focus of discussions between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yet while the question of how Washington and Tokyo will combat North Korea’s nuclear ambitions drew headlines, another potentially significant development went largely overlooked: The United States and Japan unveiled their governments’ joint effort to offer an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The BRI is China’s plan to build infrastructure (from roads and railways to telecommunications and energy links) stretching from eastern Asia to western Europe. In the process, China will be forging closer economic and political links with nearly every country on the Eurasian continent – leading many in the United States to view the BRI as a geopolitical plot rather than the “win-win” effort China insists it is. In the past, U.S. officials have spoken disparagingly, if obliquely, about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as my colleague Ankit Panda reported back in October. Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “in a globalized world, there are many belts and many roads, and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating ‘one belt, one road.’”
More:
https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/in-japan-trump-and-abe-offer-alternative-to-chinas-belt-and-road/
