In Oct. 2 remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported by South China Morning Post, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, whose primary area of responsibility has been the Indo-Pacific region, tried to explain some of the foreign policy challenges and frustrations he (and the Biden administration) have faced in dealing with China. He is anxious to prove that Washington isn’t trying to hold China back, or engage in regime change, although some of its policy decisions have hardly been viewed as positive by China.
A priority now is for the U.S. to “step up its game” in the Global South, he insists, comparing what the U.S. is trying to do through the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as opposed to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Campbell reported that last year, China’s BRI investments in Africa were under $10 billion, although the “lack of transparency” makes it difficult to know exact figures, while the DFC invested $12 billion in its last calendar year in the Global South, mostly in Africa. But, he lamented, the U.S. has done a poor job in “publicizing our accomplishments … we’ve done a terrible job at explaining that and underscoring our commitments to critical minerals, to supply chains and the like. But the truth is, we are seeking to find new tools,” SCMP quotes him as saying.
Campbell’s discussion of the BRI is almost a caricature, asserting that while the BRI focuses on building big sports stadiums, leadership houses and similar things—omitting mention of large infrastructure projects like ports, railroads, dams, highways, nuclear plants, etc.—the DFC focuses more on skills training and “empowering people.” And, he adds, the BRI provides “a host of foreign workers coming in and then leaving with very little value added.”
