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Should America join China’s Belt and Road Initiative? A trade war alternative.
China is spending trillions to build up a world that prefers American leadership. Is this an opportunity for Trump?
THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA has embarked on an unprecedented global construction project. The Belt and Road Initiative (or BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road) is a massive development strategy that China is pursuing in 152 countries across five continents. A new silk road, connecting China to the infrastructure and economies of nations everywhere, that America should eagerly and enthusiastically help build.
The creation of new land and sea routes that links commerce in a global network is inevitable and, by not joining, the US is ceding soft-power of an unprecedented scale to the Chinese Communist Party. The 21st century is often called the Asian century or the Chinese century and for very good reason, hundreds of millions of Chinese are joining the global middle class and their consumer desires will drive the direction of our world economy. And funnel trillions of dollars into Chinese government coffers. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), functionally the Chinese government, is using the unprecedented income to improve the lives of 1.3 billion Chinese citizens but also bringing…