Belt and Road Initiative

Chinese officials are quite open that Belt and Road is aimed at creating a Eurasia wide Chinese led bloc to counter the United States. Belt and Road an umbrella term used to cover a range of Chinese funded and usually Chinese built infrastructure projects around the globe. Usually it's a condition of funding that the host country uses Chinese companies and often Chinese workers to build the project and often the relevant facilities are then run by Chinese personnel. For vulnerable countries and ambitious leaders, a big advantage of Belt and Road money is that it rarely involves the accountability and transparency requirements of a regular loan and is often accompanied by massive political donations. While the most notorious a Belt and Road project is the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka that is now Chinese owned after the Sri Lankan government couldn't meet repayments and now hosts Chinese submarines. There are many other projects in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. For instance,

• a hydro dam in Ecuador;
• a Chinese run satellite control station in Argentina;
• a railway upgrade in Hungary;
• a facial recognition project in Zimbabwe;
• port construction and operation projects in Israel;
• coal-fired power stations in Pakistan;
• gas pipelines in Tajikistan;
• a new port in Burma with rail access to China
• a high-speed rail line in [[Java}} and
• a wharf big enough for an aircraft carrier in Vanuatu