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Speaker 1: M h. Hello everyone, Welcome to the first of for

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg broadcasts on China's Felton Road. Initially, I'm David Tweeden. Today.

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Speaker 1: Over the next three episodes, I'll be talking to the

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Speaker 1: quarters and competing involved in our series about this potentially

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Speaker 1: world altering project. President chi Ching King calls it the

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Speaker 1: Project the Century. It's going to be a decade's long

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Speaker 1: drive to less grease the wheels of trade with a

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Speaker 1: massive infrastructure of spending. Program um with me is Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: TV Stephen Engel, who has anchored the first of our episodes. Stephen,

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Speaker 1: you call this u At the beginning you you mentioned

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Speaker 1: that this is this is potentially an empire building exercise.

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Speaker 1: That's a Christian you want school or you then ask

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Speaker 1: is it the creation of a new world order? What

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Speaker 1: is the Belting Right initiative? Well, it is a revival

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Speaker 1: of the old Silk Route, if you want to call

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Speaker 1: it that. It is in much grander scale though, going

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Speaker 1: to a hundred and three different countries or international organizations

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Speaker 1: everywhere from of course across Central Asia to Africa, to Europe,

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Speaker 1: even to the Caribbean, uh to the Arctic, many different

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Speaker 1: places that need trade and need investment and that China

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Speaker 1: can come in and help facilitate that. China basically says,

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Speaker 1: if we want to boil it down to three main points,

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Speaker 1: uh Number one spur development and of course therefore global trade.

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Speaker 1: Number two incur some good will. Well, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about whether they are incurring goodwill in depth in

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Speaker 1: this podcast. And number three really promote economic integration at

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Speaker 1: a time. Of course, there's dislocation, if you will, in

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Speaker 1: global trade flows, with the brewing trade war between China

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Speaker 1: and the United States, is China going to be looking

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Speaker 1: further afield elsewhere than to its traditional number one trading

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Speaker 1: partners like the EU of course, and also the United

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Speaker 1: States in particular. But there are a lot of critics

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Speaker 1: of the Belt and Road initiative. You know already it's

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Speaker 1: cost more than the Martial plan that rebuilt Europe following

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Speaker 1: World War Two, of course, has measured in today's dollars.

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Speaker 1: It is also much grander in scope than really what

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Speaker 1: has been described by many Chinese the Chinese civilizations Golden era,

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Speaker 1: and that was the Tongue Dynasty where we saw the

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Speaker 1: trade route really flourish to the west of China. Originally

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Speaker 1: h the critics, though, say, who's going to pay for

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Speaker 1: all this infrastructure? Also, how indebted will these some of

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Speaker 1: them troubled economies, How indebted will they become when infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: of course takes years to become cash flow positive. Are

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Speaker 1: there going to be a lot of white elephants sitting

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Speaker 1: around along the new Silk Road? And is this all

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Speaker 1: to accommodate an increasingly assertive superpower as it spreads its influence,

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Speaker 1: And of course it's products and goods. I think that's

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Speaker 1: one of the main issues really, that that that that

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Speaker 1: part of the world is worried about it. It's what

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Speaker 1: the last there, yeah, exactly, um, and you know it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's the extent of China's ambition and and that

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Speaker 1: ambition that was outlined by Cheesing Ping because when he

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Speaker 1: talks about the belt of road, Belton Road and when

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Speaker 1: he talked about it last year, um, you know, he

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Speaker 1: puts it into the context of China's uh, you know, resurrection.

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Speaker 1: If you like, it's it's rebirth as a as a

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Speaker 1: huge its exactly rightful place. Well, I'll tell you what

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Speaker 1: interests me is is also looking at some of the

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Speaker 1: numbers that are bandied around because Morgan Stanley has got

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Speaker 1: an estimate that the whole project is going to cost

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Speaker 1: one point three million dollars. That's t for trillion. I

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Speaker 1: think that's a pretty conservative dollars when and the question is, though,

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Speaker 1: I suppose, um, you know, looking at looking at Belton

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Speaker 1: Road from China's foreign policy ambitions and also looking at

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Speaker 1: China's relationship now with the United States, which is rather

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Speaker 1: concerned that the Belton Road is in fact designed to

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Speaker 1: somehow question US dominance in the world. How do you

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Speaker 1: how do you look at the project when you consider

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Speaker 1: what's going on with US China relations and at the

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Speaker 1: moment I'm thinking in particular about the trade war. Well,

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Speaker 1: of course, yeah, the trade war hangs over everything in

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Speaker 1: between China and US relations. But look at the precursors

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Speaker 1: to this trade war. You had Donald Trump pulling out

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Speaker 1: of the Trans Pacific Partnership, not getting involved necessarily in

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Speaker 1: the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and de pivoting. Is that

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Speaker 1: a word, Well, I'm going to use it away from

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Speaker 1: Asia if you will, as Obama did use his pivot

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Speaker 1: towards Asia. So what you're seeing is China pushing forward

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Speaker 1: with new initiatives or or building out on this initiative

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Speaker 1: that did come about in UH and not being so

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Speaker 1: reliant on the United States. And it's not surprising that

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Speaker 1: we're hearing voices from the United States UH kind of

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Speaker 1: discounting the eventual viability of this large, large project. Sixteen

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Speaker 1: U S senators recently warning about the dangers of falling

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Speaker 1: into China's debt trap. Um. You know, there's a number

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Speaker 1: of different warning signals and cautionary tales already. UH. You

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Speaker 1: know surfacing. China likes to talk about how they've seen

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Speaker 1: five trillion dollars in trade over the first five years,

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Speaker 1: but also there's lots of debt that's been incurred. And

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Speaker 1: we can go down the list from Sri Lanka to

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Speaker 1: Malaysia too, of course Pakistan, Djibouti. The list is getting

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Speaker 1: a little bit longer. About this potential debt trap. To me,

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Speaker 1: how is the funding going on with the built and

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Speaker 1: road How see is China actually managing the funding here?

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Speaker 1: Let's look at the numbers China state financing bodies. They've

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Speaker 1: lent to date three d five billion dollars commercial state

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Speaker 1: banks in China, they've pledged two hundred thirty three billion

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Speaker 1: dollars and loans China lad Ai I be a hundred billion,

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Speaker 1: plus China's Silk Road Fund forty billion. That's seven eight

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Speaker 1: billion dollars right there alone centered from China, real money

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Speaker 1: from the Chinese, the World Bank fifty nine billion. So

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Speaker 1: is this not being led by China? Oh? Absolutely, this

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Speaker 1: is being led by China and dominated by China. Why

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Speaker 1: don't we then listening to the comments that the head

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Speaker 1: of the base said during the first episode, it's not

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Speaker 1: a program dominated by China. It's the program by which

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Speaker 1: China works with other countries, working with international financial institutions

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Speaker 1: Multi letal, November Banks, So it's kind of cooperation. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: there's some people miss under students as a kind of

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Speaker 1: China program. China wants to to take levant of these

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Speaker 1: to promote its own interests, which nothing could be further

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Speaker 1: from the truth. Um, you've heard there from Jin Lee Chon,

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Speaker 1: who's the head of the AII BE talking about how

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Speaker 1: actually he thinks China isn't going to be dominating these projects,

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Speaker 1: h Steve, There's a lot of investment that needs to

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Speaker 1: be done. Um, if China is not to dominate them,

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Speaker 1: or China suddenly dominating in terms of the money, but

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Speaker 1: you know, do you have any sense that there's uh

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Speaker 1: that these projects are going to be designed hand in

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Speaker 1: hand with the countries that actually need this infrastructure. Well, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I mean they're trying to instill and get some goodwill

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Speaker 1: from these countries that need investment. A lot of these

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Speaker 1: countries are are nearing default or they've have serious current

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Speaker 1: account deficits. Look at Pakistan, as I mentioned there before. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, they're on the verge of potentially getting an

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Speaker 1: IMF bail out. There's fears that if they do get

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Speaker 1: an i MF bailout, that money could be used to

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Speaker 1: pay back its SEPACK debt. SEPACK is the China Pakistan

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Speaker 1: Economic Corridor. Basically the new Prime Minister Mr. Kahan, you know,

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Speaker 1: he is trying to create jobs, create uh investment. But

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Speaker 1: the problem is is if you look at Guadar, one

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Speaker 1: of the ports there, it is dominated by the Chinese.

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Speaker 1: And that's one of the biggest struggles. A lot of

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Speaker 1: these countries that take the loans at China's conditions, Uh,

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Speaker 1: they take China's investment, they take Chinese workers, and what

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Speaker 1: do the local governments get other than perhaps a port

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Speaker 1: or a facility that eventually will be handed back to

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Speaker 1: China because China, the local governments cannot pay. We've seen

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Speaker 1: that in Sri Lanka, they've had to hand over a

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Speaker 1: majority control all of this newly developed port to a

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Speaker 1: Chinese state on enterprise to ease part of the burden,

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Speaker 1: that debt burden that they've seen to China. And we

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Speaker 1: want to go into details of that if you want.

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Speaker 1: One of the one of the other statistics that comes

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Speaker 1: out of this report that really struck me was that

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Speaker 1: out of the seventy or so countries apparently that have

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Speaker 1: signed up, seven percent the sovereign debt is ray to junk.

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Speaker 1: So you know, there is this this this debt trap issue.

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Speaker 1: But also I mean, considering that China has got potential

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Speaker 1: debt problems at home, it seems as if China sort

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Speaker 1: of like has the risk of importing debt problems by

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Speaker 1: investing in these projects, it could potentially dodgy. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: well that is a concern as well. With a growing

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Speaker 1: escalating trade tensions with the United States, simultaneously with the

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Speaker 1: crackdown on over leveraging in China, does it force China

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Speaker 1: to scale back its risk appetite in these developing countries.

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Speaker 1: I mean I keep on bringing up various examples, but

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Speaker 1: take for example, Djibouti in Africa. China has provided one

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Speaker 1: point for billion dollars in infrastructure funding about seventy Djibouti's

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Speaker 1: g d P. Most of that came in the form

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Speaker 1: of loans from the Export Import Bank of China. The

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Speaker 1: fears though this will end up like uh in Sri Lanka,

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Speaker 1: that China will gain control of the Dorala counter terminal

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Speaker 1: container jominal excuse me, and then also Humbug total Port

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Speaker 1: in Sri Lanka, and then Guadar in Pakistan. It's we're

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Speaker 1: talking about a string of pearls that China is investing in,

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Speaker 1: and many of them happen to be strategic deep water ports. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, Jibouty is actually a new Chinese base, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: so I suppose there's the risk that they're going to

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Speaker 1: turn Guadar and maybe the port in Sri Lanka into

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Speaker 1: a base. We don't know that that's not going to happen. Well,

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Speaker 1: they say Guadar, which is in I believe what western Pakistan,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's pretty much out in the middle of

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Speaker 1: no war. But it's a deep water port and it's

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Speaker 1: primarily a Chinese town right now. And we talked about

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Speaker 1: uh Khan talking about building or creating what ten thousand

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Speaker 1: or ten million new jobs excuse me, over the first

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Speaker 1: hundred days of of being in office. Let me get

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Speaker 1: those numbers exactly right. He's talked about creating, yes, ten

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Speaker 1: million new jobs in the first hundred days in office.

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Speaker 1: But one of the biggest complaints coming out of Guadar

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Speaker 1: is if you look around, you see more Chinese security

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Speaker 1: agents and security soldiers and police protecting Guadart, their investment

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Speaker 1: and their reports basically that they've invested in from what

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Speaker 1: they say is potential terrorism threats uh and and and

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Speaker 1: various other problems and people they're saying, it's become a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a little China. Steve, I just want

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Speaker 1: to end with with with with a little chat about

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Speaker 1: what you think UM b r IY is going because

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Speaker 1: in the first five years, and let's face it, it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty short period of time since it was us

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Speaker 1: pronouncing that speech by ping Um, we've seen a lot

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Speaker 1: of projects have been labeled b r I. But I

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Speaker 1: suppose now we're going to see, you know, projects which

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Speaker 1: are specifically b r I. There might be more you know,

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Speaker 1: the the the the the lending covenants around those projects

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Speaker 1: might be more commercial. Where do you see the project

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Speaker 1: going over the next say, the next five years or beyond.

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Speaker 1: What's interesting for Chinese companies if you want to look

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Speaker 1: at it from that perspective, is there have been a

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Speaker 1: lot of capital controls over the last couple of years

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Speaker 1: that Chinese companies have had to stringently abide by because

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Speaker 1: of the protection of the REM and B. But if

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Speaker 1: you somehow make a business case that your company is

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Speaker 1: investing or part of the Belton Road, Uh, you can

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Speaker 1: sort of get around a lot of those rules. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting, Michael, every of Rubble Bank, he says, being

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Speaker 1: tied to Belton Road is like, you know, is a

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Speaker 1: political special Saucy says, if you drizzle it on anything,

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Speaker 1: it tastes better. So so again, this is really being

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Speaker 1: driven by Siejin Ping. Keep in mind Siejun Ping has

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Speaker 1: had the constitution changed. He is now a leader, uh,

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Speaker 1: potentially for life. This is his calling card project and

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Speaker 1: he is going to undoubtedly push this forward and try

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Speaker 1: to make it a success. Already, China signed a hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighteen cooperation agreements with a hundred and three countries

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Speaker 1: and international organizations. Uh, they've built a number of or

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Speaker 1: in the process of building a number of high speed

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Speaker 1: railways or regular railways. But keep in mind as well,

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Speaker 1: there's been pushed back Maha to Mohammed went to Beijing,

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Speaker 1: the new old new slash old Prime Minister of Malaysia

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Speaker 1: basically went to Beijing and instead of cow towing and

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Speaker 1: talking nice, he said, listen, China, this is turning out

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Speaker 1: to be a new form of colonialism. And you know what,

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Speaker 1: We're gonna scrap that twenty billion dollar high speed railway project.

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Speaker 1: We don't necessarily need to be beholden to the Chinese.

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Speaker 1: We want to employ Mala Malaysians on these projects, not

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Speaker 1: bringing imported labor from China. Steve hold that thought because

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Speaker 1: episode two of the program is going to take us

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Speaker 1: to India with Slender Ammon and she's Windyer is one

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Speaker 1: of the big skeptics when it comes to Belton Road.

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Speaker 1: She's also going to go to Thailand and Kazakhstan. Um

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Speaker 1: Richard Saloma in the third episode is going to have

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Speaker 1: a look at East Africa and particular in particular Kenya.

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Speaker 1: And then finally Tom McKenzie, who's our Aijing correspondent will

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Speaker 1: be in Europe and he's going to talk to to

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Speaker 1: the Europeans about their concerns and also what they think

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Speaker 1: about the project in general. So there's a lot coming up. Steve,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much indeed for speaking to me. I'm

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Speaker 1: David Tweed. This has been the first in our podcast

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Speaker 1: about our new Belton Road series. You can actually catch

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Speaker 1: up and see a little bit more about this with

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Speaker 1: some stories, and also the series are on a Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot com. I just looked at Belton Road m