China's President Xi Jinping has pledged the world's top emitter will reach carbon-neutrality by 2060.President Xi Jinping’s signature infrastructure program, is in trouble. While many countries with real development needs have jumped on the bandwagon, the cooling global economy is exposing serious problems with BRI projects around the world. The pressure is now on Xi, fresh off a victory lap at the party congress, to reboot the initiative in a viable way.
BRI projects have gone down the same path. Because the initiative is Xi’s global brand, Chinese banks aren’t keen on due diligence when they lend to Beijing-picked projects. The loans are parked at special-purpose corporations rather than the destination country’s national debt.
Second, Premier Li Keqiang, presumably the second most powerful politician in the country, leads a more pragmatic faction in Beijing that cares more about the economy. But Li's faction seems not to be on board with what Xi has in mind for the BRI. Before the COVID pandemic, Li’s name used to show up once in a while when thetalked about the initiative, although Li is constantly overshadowed by his boss, but it barely made any appearance in the paper during the BRI’s post-COVID overhaul.