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| Xi Jinping hawks OBOR to Filipino flunkies. Apparently, there are many of these sorts all over the world. |
China excels at spectacle, and the Belt & Road Forum was as much PR stunt as anything. But the vast scale of the plan and the national ambition behind it dwarfs anything leaders are contemplating in Washington, or European capitals. “If you compare this to what the United States is doing—trying to rescue the steel and aluminum sectors and open a few markets for its goods—we’re pretty small potatoes,” says Scott Kennedy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “China is more organized and they’re planning more strategically than the United States.”Apparently, there is some kind of nascent Western inferiority complex when it comes to infrastructure. The Americans aside, the British want in on a piece of the action. However, they will have to duke it out with the PRC's erstwhile Hong Konger compatriots to help finance the enormous project if a South China Morning Post article is to be believed:
Hong Kong and London have locked horns at a two-day high-level forum in Beijing over which city is best placed to act as the finance hub for China’s global trade and commerce strategy. At the first day of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying insisted the city was “the preferred destination” for capital flows from the mainland. Leung cited the city’s status as the largest offshore settlement centre for yuan trade and its title as the world’s No 1 stock market for new listings in 2016.
C.Y. Leung may not exactly be an authoritative source on the matter at this point in time since he's the lame duck chief executive of Hong Kong. His British counterpart's place in the political space may be more secure since his Conservatives look set to win an overwhelming majority against the decrepit Labour Party:
Aside from the question of whether OBOR will be realized anywhere close to the scale of the PRC vision, it is amusing to find financial centers vying to be locales for where the fundraising will be conducted. That is, OBOR may be more smoke and mirrors and vaporware more than anything, ah, concrete, but that's not stopping folks from bending over backwards to court the favor of the Chinese Communist Party.However, [Leung's] bid was swiftly challenged by British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond. Referring to the sheer scale of funding required for China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, which promises to be in the trillions of US dollars and would require mobilising the world’s capital markets, Hammond said Leung’s pitch was “elegantly made”, but “London is not an alternative to Hong Kong”.
At the very least, then, consider it a well-done PR job.
