SNA (New York) — The Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) is the United States’ latest attempt to challenge China’s global investment strategy, the better-established Belt and Road Initiative, but it is unclear how serious a challenge PGII can truly present to Beijing.

While announcing the initiative in June, US President Joe Biden declared, “Let communities around the world see for themselves the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies.”

The president’s remarks made clear that the PGII was intended to be a Belt and Road rival and an attempt to wrest back full control of the global economy from China, a nation which Biden has cast as the representative of authoritarianism.

“When democracies demonstrate what we can do, all that we have to offer, I have no doubt that we’ll win the competition every time,” the US president declared.

The PGII was launched in conjunction with a G7 meeting with the unanimous support of all group members, including Japan.

The agreement’s official goal is to end the “infrastructure gap” between rich and poor counties, and more closely unite the global economy. To that end, the members pledged US$600 billion to the project over the next five years; US$200 billion of which will be provided by the United States itself.

China was quick to deliver its official response to the launch of PGII, as well as to similar US-led initiatives such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian began, “China always welcomes initiatives that promote global infrastructure. Such initiatives do not have to cancel each other out.” However, he also warned against the agreement being used as a tool for great power competition: “Such initiatives should not be designed to form exclusive blocs…  we oppose moves to advance geopolitical calculations and smear the Belt and Road Initiative in the name of promoting infrastructure development.”

The US president’s comments about democracies, however, left little doubt that it was indeed intended to serve the purpose of geopolitical competition with China. Choi Shing Kwok, CEO of the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, speaking to CNBC, rightly suggested that PGII “offers alternatives to the Belt and Road Initiative in a very deliberate way.”

PGII aims to massively increase climate-oriented financing. In this area, the United States committed to developing “refining, processing, and battery manufacturing sites” for green energy and vehicles.

This policy aims to counter China’s dominant role in global battery production–60% of the world’s lithium and 80% of its cobalt is refined in China, both materials being essential components for battery manufacture.

A second aim is to roll out faster and more secure information and communications technology (ICT) networks both domestically and abroad. This policy intends to challenge Chinese dominance over the emerging Internet of Things.

The White House asserts a need for “trusted vendors to provide 5G and 6G digital connectivity,” by which the US government hopes to lock Chinese firms like Huawei out of major contracts in Western and developing nations.

The Biden administration is attempting to distinguish its PGII initiative by claiming that it represents an alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative which supports human and civil rights, as well as progressive values such as gender equality. This is meant to form a positive contrast to Beijing’s stance of making loans and partnerships with repressive governments.

The US government, however, may have difficulty making such a case due its own record in this respect. For example, the largest Belt and Road Initiative partner in 2022 was Saudi Arabia. While Riyadh is certainly one of the most repressive nations in the world, the West is compromised by the fact that it is also one of their own key allies.

Finally, PGII aims to prevent a repeat of the Covid pandemic by investing in global healthcare infrastructure, and by funding vaccine development in regions which have fallen short in this area.

Beijing’s broad response to the PGII initiative is to note that saying is one thing and doing is quite another–the West will be judged in the developing world by whether or not it produces positive results like the Belt and Road Initiative.

As the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman put it: “the world wants to see real investment and projects that will truly deliver for the people.”

Beijing’s barbs are not without merit. The Build Back Better World (B3W) agreement, which was a slogan adopted by many Western leaders at an earlier stage of the pandemic, was also intended to signal competition with the Belt and Road Initiative. So far, it has produced little in terms of concrete results. Even its US domestic counterpart, the Build Back Better legislation, failed to pass in the US Congress.

Indeed, even if all of PGII’s current promises are fulfilled, Beijing is still expected to outspend the United States and its allies in terms of supporting international infrastructure development.

The Council on Foreign Relations and others have noted that–leaving aside international aid initiatives–US domestic infrastructure spending is “dangerously overstretched and lagging behind that of its economic competitors, namely China.”

There are serious grounds to doubt that the United States can truly compete with Beijing abroad when it can’t even get its act together at home.

That said, a handful of projects under the PGII umbrella are moving forward.

A US$2 billion investment in green power and decarbonization measures in Angola was unveiled at the June launch. Additionally, US company SubCom was recently awarded a US$600 million contract to construct a telecoms cable connecting France and Singapore via the Horn of Africa.

Additionally, the Biden administration recently announced that the first in-person meeting of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework agreement would be scheduled for next month. Representatives of at least thirteen nations are expected to attend.

Nevertheless, Washington and its allies have a long, long way to go if they hope to truly compete with what China has already achieved in the developing world, and the notion that Beijing can be excluded from regional and global infrastructure development seems farfetched at best.

For breaking news, follow on Twitter @ShingetsuNews