"Now China is providing them funds, the construction expertise to build modern infrastructure, and this is the basis for sustained development, and bodes well for the economic future of developing nations." (Xinhua/Li Yibo)ĭeveloping nations, on the contrary, consider the BRI the best hope for development, he said.įor decades, these countries couldn't modernize their antiquated infrastructure, he said. Whenever the Western media report on the BRI, they are used to portray the initiative with skepticism.Ī Chang'an China-Europe freight train leaves for Kazakhstan from Xi'an International Port in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, July 29, 2022.
"We are back to the Cold War, zero-sum game mentality."īashing China "is fashionable in many quarters in the West," Tourk said. Western countries look at the BRI through a geo-strategic lens, he said. There are two ways to look at the BRI in the world at present, Tourk told Xinhua. "The BRI has drawn world attention to the importance of infrastructure as an essential pillar of economic development," he said.Ĭhina has done its best to help countries in distress, Tourk said, referring to measures including "rescue" loans to many BRI countries. The BRI loans do not represent a threat to the global economy," he said.įurthermore, infrastructure has not been the main focus of post-1945 multilateral institutions for decades. "In addition, there is no need to exaggerate the problem of debt distress. "For developing countries, from Sri Lanka to Argentina, the greenback's rise has made servicing dollar-denominated debts essentially impossible." Tourk attributes the primary reason for the distress to recent changes in U.S. "Sri Lanka's recent default has nothing to do with the Chinese loans," he said. Taking Sri Lanka as an example, Tourk said the island country owed only 10 percent of its total sovereign debt to China, whereas 47 percent is the country's market borrowings from Western hedge funds and banks. Photo taken on shows Khairy Tourk, professor of economics with the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, receiving an interview with Xinhua in Chicago, the United States. "We should guard against blaming China for the difficulties some BRI nations are having in paying off their sovereign debts." In a letter to the Financial Times in early August, while agreeing with the British publication's opinion view that the BRI is building "worthwhile infrastructure in developing countries," Tourk disagreed with its statement that the initiative is "morphing into a financial firefighting operation on a grand scale" for China. There has been a lot of negative reporting on the subject," he said in a recent interview with Xinhua. "During writing my book on the BRI, I was struck by how the international media is spreading falsehoods about the BRI. He has long been concerned about the Western media's unrelenting attempts to tarnish the BRI over the last few years. Khairy Tourk, professor of economics with the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, has studied the BRI for years and published the book "The Belt and Road Initiative - Chinese solution to a deficient global order" in January 2022. 25 (Xinhua) - The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) puts developing nations on the right track to achieving their long-term development goals, a scholar has said. Developing nations, on the contrary, consider the BRI the best hope for development.ĬHICAGO, Aug. "We are back to the Cold War, zero-sum game mentality," Tourk said.
Western countries look at the BRI through a geo-strategic lens. There are two ways to look at the BRI in the world at present.
"We should guard against blaming China for the difficulties some BRI nations are having in paying off their sovereign debts," Khairy Tourk said.