The American people are NOT asking the right questions.
Simply put, the days of democracy or communism are over. The days of capitalism or socialism are over. China has offered the world entirely new choices and a completely new vision for the future.
While America has been destroying countries, China has been building countries.
Known as the Belts and Roads Initiative, China is expanding their trade route once known as the Silk Road. Instead of conquering armies, they are connecting countries with sophisticated ports, high-speed trains, shipping routes, air travel, and energy generation. Instead of war, China used infrastructure to propel economic growth, creating a high-speed rail network that now tops 29,000 kilometers, paving over 100,000 kilometers of new expressways, constructing over 100 new airports, and building no less than 3,500 new urban areas — which include 500 economic development zones and 1,000 city-level developments. Over this period of time, China’s GDP has grown more than 10-fold, ranking #2 in the world today.
By 2020, 75% of Chinese cities with a population of 500,000, or more, had high-speed rail links. By high-speed rail, I’m talking about trains travelling up to 350 miles per hour that ended the dominance of air travel for its citizens (and businesses). China’s high-speed rail lines are well on their way south, to Singapore, as well as east to Africa, Asia and Europe – as well as India and the Middle East. China and Russia are planning a high-speed rail line from Moscow to Beijing, with huge ramifications on the global supply chain. The rail line would cut the journey time on the Trans-Siberian line from six days to two and would open up the possibility of rail freight being transported on this route back and forth from China to Europe via Moscow.
In 2017, China announced the Polar Silk Road which will connect China to Canada – via the artic circle (which is melting and opening up shipping routes). Once China connects to Canada, trade will travel south back and forth, through the U.S. into Mexico, Central and South America. When that happens, the role of Canada in global trade will be enormous.
In 2018, China began building its first 30,000-ton nuclear icebreaker. Russia is the only other country in the world with one of those ships – and they have a fleet of them – not even the United States has one. China does not need Russia’s or America’s permission to access the Arctic.
China traces the basis for its role in Arctic affairs to the 1925 Spitsbergen Treaty, which attests to the sovereignty of Norway over the Archipelago of Spitsbergen and gives equal rights for trade activities on the islands to all signed parties – including China.
China is presently involved in infrastructure project in 35 African countries. A concentration of projects are in Angola, Nigeria and the Sudan. However, China is planning a new range of projects in other countries, especially in the DRC. The country’s activities have been divided among two main sectors: power generation (especially hydropower), and transport (especially railroads), followed by Information and Communication Technology (mainly equipment supply).
In South America, China has bought up so much copper, pork, and soy—and constructed so many roads, trains, power grids, and bridges—that it’s surpassed the U.S. as South America’s largest trade partner and is now the single biggest trader with Brazil, Chile, and Peru. Today, a Chinese company is leading a group that’s building the metro in the Colombian capital of Bogotá. Energy giant State Grid Corp. of China owns the company that supplies electricity to more than 10 million Brazilian homes. In February, Argentina announced that China would finance about $24 billion in new infrastructure projects.
We, Americans, need to stop and think things through. Our infrastructure is an antique – we cannot compete with countries that have brand new infrastructure using 21st century technology.
