Click to see full-size image
On November 4th, the US announced it’s take on the a “standard for global #infrastructure development,” the Blue Dot Network.
Essentially, the strong antagonism against China’s Belt and Road Initiative is starting to make sense, as the US quite obviously has it’s own version of the project that it wanted to pitch.
High standards deliver high impact!
Unveiled today, #BlueDotNetwork will set the standard for global #infrastructure development. ?️
How the U.S. is collaborating with partners like @dfat to foster free, open, & prosperous societies: https://t.co/SZMJF0LRNQ #IndoPacificBizForum pic.twitter.com/RqFqwdKztp
— OPIC.gov (@opicgov) November 4, 2019
It is a joint project of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). It is a global “sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world,” according to the OPIC press release.
The project was announced at the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Bangkok, Thailand. It was outlined by OPIC’s David Bohigian, along with U.S. Department of State Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith Krach, DFAT Deputy Secretary Richard Maude, and JBIC Governor Tadashi Maeda.
They had the following to say:
“The development of critical infrastructure—when it is led by the private sector and supported on terms that are transparent, sustainable, and socially and environmentally responsible—is foundational to widespread economic empowerment,” said Bohigian. “Through Blue Dot Network, the United States is proud to join key partners to fully unlock the power of quality infrastructure to foster unprecedented opportunity, progress, and stability.”
“This endorsement of Blue Dot Network not only creates a solid foundation for infrastructure global trust standards but reinforces the need for the establishment of umbrella global trust standards in other sectors, including digital, mining, financial services, and research,” said Krach. “Such global trust standards, which are based on respect for transparency and accountability, sovereignty of property and resources, local labor and human rights, rule of law, the environment, and sound governance practices in procurement and financing, have been driven not just by private sector companies and civil society but also by governments around the world.”
“Australia is committed to promoting high-quality infrastructure, inclusive approaches, and facilitating private sector investment in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Maude. “I’m pleased that this commitment is shared by East Asia Summit Leaders, and we look forward to working closely with our regional partners to develop Blue Dot Network to take action on this commitment.”
“Blue Dot Network is an initiative that leads to the promotion of quality infrastructure investment committed by G20 countries,” said Maeda. “As JBIC has a long history of infrastructure finance all over the world, JBIC is pleased to share such experience and contribute to further development of Blue Dot Network.”
The Blue Dot Network would specifically support the goals of the East Asia Summit Leaders, and “build upon common principles of project excellence agreed to as part of the G20 Buenos Aires Call to Action, G20 Osaka Summit Principles for Promoting Quality Infrastructure Investment, discussions around the G7 Charlevoix Commitment, and the Equator Principles.”
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had the following to say, during his speech at the Indo-Pacific Development Mission:
“It is a multilateral approach to fostering sustainable economic growth by promoting excellence in infrastructure development and supporting alternatives to predatory lending.”
He separately told the Financial Times ahead of the launch: “Each blue dot is meant to be a dot on the map that will be a safe place for companies to operate if they are interested in sustainable infrastructure projects…The point is to show seriousness about the sustainability of projects.”
And, indeed, the US is quite interested in the region.
Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, U.S. government agencies have invested more than $2.9 billion to support the economic pillar of the Indo-Pacific strategy. This investment will further be supported by the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC), created by the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act of 2018. There are further plans for Indo-Pacific economic engagement with $60 billion in development finance to leverage greater private sector investment in emerging markets.
Two-way trade between the U.S. and the Indo-Pacific Region increased by almost 6% in 2018 to almost $2 trillion.
The cumulative stock of foreign direct investment between the United States and the Indo-Pacific increased by 5.9 percent in 2018, to $1.6 trillion. The United States is the largest source of FDI in the Indo-Pacific Region, with a total investment at the end of last year valued at nearly $866 billion.
China’s foreign direct investment in the region was $504 billion in 2017, of which $381 billion went to Hong Kong, and only $123 billion to the rest of the region.
According to FDI Markets, the number of U.S.-announced greenfield projects in the Indo-Pacific Region rose by 23 percent last year, to 1,022. ASEAN is the number-one U.S. investment destination in the Indo-Pacific for American companies. With a cumulative $271 billion invested, there is $29 billion more U.S. FDI in ASEAN than in China and Japan combined.
And the US’ increased focus on the Indo-Pacific region was underlined by Trump even back in November 2017:
“We have been friends, partners, and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time, and we will be friends, partners, and allies for a long time to come.”
In regard to the Blue Dot Network, there is little concrete information and numbers as of yet, but there are grand promises, which the US hopes would be able to compete with China’s Belt and Road. It is gaining more support throughout even beyond the Indo-Pacific region, since it is truly a “global infrastructure,” at least in China’s claims for it.
Rather, at least, instead of empty antagonism against the Belt and Road now the US has a (potential) alternative it can offer.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
hahahahaha
bluedot Network……fabulous…….. so more ENRON and & Co….lololol…way to go moronic degenerated on genocide founded Evil america…lol………after the hateful 8 …came the happey 10…lol
Yeah, take Pakistan, when the issue was to start ordinary comerse, dual deals where China and/or other actores as the Asean region of nations is going into the Belt and Road initiative the UssA started their counter attacks by unleashing their Patsys like the Al-CIAedas everywhere, take Africa to, even worse, create the problem of terrorism etc and come up with an solution as they claim it is, while large multinational corps feeds the rotten corrupt regimes with uh….. observers, and MICs have charte blanch to sel/do whatever they can of Militray crapp to this respective nations, and again, large corps have usually their own merc army, weird how little that is written about, like Dutch shell, etc, own armys, of uh…. security reasons of course, and that, is what, deals, right.
This, is why Africa never had any chanse to do anything, because of the western imperialism, feeding the corruption, keeping the native in chains, and uses the marked to chruch Agrican agriculture by dumping exsess production from our farms, the Fat mountain etc to grains to undermine the Africans, all this have been ongoing for decades, and its never writen about nor shown on the Tube. And poverty in Africa comes directly from this skeems, from wars by proxies to food suply, poverty is been imposed upon Africa for several generations, and somehow, despite me been hailed as an Neo-nazi aka nationalist, I am alone in this when it comes to say what is our mayore problem, even as we speak.
I would never ever trust the AmeriCunts for an split second, never, thats an dead shure way of destroying your nation if you are dumb enough to do anything or have any deal what so ever with the Imperial banana republic, because it will always come thru been infront of the barrels of an cannon, impisses never change. If I was an African I would start to clean up my house first, kick out the multinational Corps, nationalise the recourses and start to do something about your own people, and why do you think the crushed Libya, Mali etc, because of their atempts to go independence, the UssA will never alow you to do that, never have, never will, and focus on those that can help you into growing your own nation, thru infratsucture, helping industy to be viable and sustainable and save the economy, and all the debt they have forced down your throuths can be just cut out, I know this sounds brutal but the fact is, the west is going down, the monetary policys is crashing our nations, and just kick em out, refuse to pay the debt unless they do something for the people, not throwing something into the nation for the benefit of the elite as everywhere else. if you dont do this, Africa, I am afraid the path forward will be pushed into the future and the present system of corruption will never be gone. Hang em all.
peace
Why does Washington DC always come late to the party, once somebody else has come up with the template and then demand they walk off with the prize goal?
I wonder how they will play it all out? Will it be using the US tax payer funded NGO, the NED to lay down the seeds and if so how? No doubt with the Soros Open Society Foundation, working in parallel.
How do the NED get their regime change script running? Well, here is a statement from the NED, with how they wish to act out regime change, over in Serbia, hoping the Serbs have forgotten the Kosovo War? Forgotten that Slobodan Milošević spent 11 years in a cell in The Hague, where he died. Only, years later, just after the UN apologised for failing to notice the genocide of 800,000 citizens of Rwanda (after the oil and diamond indudtry was up and running), the UN exonerated Slobodan Milošević of all charges laid against him. When was the Kosovo War and who was involved? How many were slaughtered and for what? How many working for NATO and nations supporting NATO, then run by a failed UK MP, with freaky friends, end up running private military companies, funded by the average tax payer, without their knowledge, as the White Helmets and James Le Mesurier so comes to mind. Who were the freaky friends of the Head of NATO during the Kosovo War? Let’s start with Thomas Hamilton. Does anybody remember the Dunblane School Massacre, and do believe Andy Murray the tennis player, was a pupil of the school at the time it happened. Why did the Head of NATO provide a glowing reference for his gun licence?). Why was the Head of NATO such good friends with the boy scout leader who took out the children at the Dunblane School and why?
Anyway, how does the NED create a regime change script, with the Soros Open Society running a parallel scheme? Funny, when you look at the Board of Directors of the NED, why do you find so many Ambassadors sitting on the Board, along with NGO groupies Anne Applebaum and Victoria Nuland? All funded by the average tax payer, to take us into war.
The NED Statement on Serbia – Emporer’s Clothes
‘…NED help to Serbia:
I am pleased to appear this morning to address this important issue. I represent the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. With its annual congressional appropriation, NED makes hundreds of grants each year to support prodemocracy groups in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. Many NED-funded programs have been conducted by the Endowment’s four core institutes: the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). A substantial portion of the work has been carried out by scores of other organizations abroad (some with partners in the U.S.) working in such areas as independent media, human rights, civic education, rule of law, and conflict resolution.
NED has been assisting democracy building programs in the former Yugoslavia since 1988, and in Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo since the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation. During the wars of Yugoslav succession and the U.N. embargo, NED was one of the few Western organizations, along with the Soros Foundation and some European foundations, to make grants in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), and to work with local NGOs and independent media throughout the country. The NED concentrates its funding in the following areas:
1) Independent media
2) Non-governmental organizations a) Human rights organizations b) Youth participation in politics and youth leadership c) Think tanks d) NGO development and networking
3) Trade Unions
4) Promoting Economic Reform
CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE
Western assistance organizations should give increased attention to following areas of work:
Independent media
‘…Funding must also be directed at developing the leadership skills of NGO activists.
Alternative educational institutions; student organizations
The university law has resulted in an assault on academic freedom in Serbia. Western funders must be prepared to support alternative educational institutions, like the newly formed Alternative Academic Network, which are being organized by oppositional professors who have been removed from their positions by the authorities…’
read more: http://emperors-clothes.com…
……………………
The fstatement above was discussed in ‘How the U.S. has Created a Corrupt Opposition in Serbia’ at http://emperors-clothes.com/engl.htm
http://www.tenc.net [Emperor’s Clothes]
Good luck with that. The US already has a $1 trillion/year government deficit. And China can undercut their prices at will. If the US government gets involved with private money investments it will just harm those investments.
an anemic pretense…expected from an empire near collapse
Join the sinking Pax America……..or be obliterated by it.
The US is as late as always
Like Belt & Road but with bonus bombs and civilian killing sanctions.