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China's President has pledged $124 billion for a new "Silk Road" connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe:
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday urged major multilateral institutions to join his new Belt and Road Initiative, stressing the importance of rejecting protectionism in seeking global economic growth.
Addressing other world leaders at a summit on the initiative in Beijing, Xi said it was necessary to coordinate policies with the development goals of institutions including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN, African Union and the European Union.
Xi pledged $124 billion on Sunday for his new Silk Road which aims to bolster China's global leadership ambitions by expanding links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond, as U.S. President Donald Trump promotes "America First".
No one is totally sure. At the most basic level, One Belt, One Road (OBOR) is a collection of interlinking trade deals and infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia and the Pacific, but the definition of what exactly qualifies as an OBOR project or which countries are even involved in the initiative is incredibly fuzzy. "It means everything and it means nothing at the same time," said Christopher Balding, a professor of economics at Peking University. [...] According to Chinese state media, some $1 trillion has already been invested in OBOR, with another several trillion due to be invested over the next decade.
Fuzzier story at CNN. More at Wikipedia.
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(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:42PM (3 children)
What do you mean by "larger"?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:05PM (2 children)
What do you mean by "larger"?
Larger GDP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:43AM (1 child)
You would probably like to still revisit that statement.
So they aren't really "considerably" larger economic zones. Keeping aside USA, the next 5 countries in EU altogether are barely larger than China. And don't get me started on area of economic zones, or even population.
This image [wikipedia.org] captures this very well.
Secondly, GDP doesn't measure living costs which is almost 200% lower in China than the topmost EU country - Germany. While this means purchasing power parity of Germany is bigger than China, what it really means is that number of $124 billion is actually a lot more when adjusted to ppp.
So OP is correct to say that China is investing more in building up trade than European countries selling arms.
To OP, you are wrong to say that selling arms is not investing in building up trade. The West owes everything it has today to investing in arms, including NASA, the Internet, almost all of the economy after WW1 and most importantly, the colonial loot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:01PM