Asean and BRI: Opportunity amid adversity

THE Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has already reshaped the international geostrategic and economic context. Countries in general and Asean in particular have sought to recalibrate their postures and policies as a function of the BRI's ongoing evolution. Such calculations are further complicated by competing initiatives, such as the US Build Act, which also seeks to support infrastructure opportunities in the region as part of the US Indo-Pacific strategy.

The BRI is at once an aspirational idea and a development platform, offering both abstract hope for a better world and a host of concrete commercial opportunities. The BRI is a repository for many of the world's emerging development goals, ranging from the digital economy to sustainable infrastructure, and more broadly, frictionless trade and the narrowing of wealth gaps. It offers the promise of a new development paradigm, but one that must be seized with nuance and sophistication. For Asean, this means sifting through the opportunities to advance regional goals while preserving Asean centrality.

The path towards implementing the BRI and realising its promise has not been linear. Early BRI projects engendered criticism regarding unsustainable financing practices and the insufficient involvement of the local labour force. Such criticism resulted in the Second Belt and Road Forum of 2017 reaffirming the need to adopt global best practices and giving rise to the mantra "open, clean and green" to capture the need for transparency and sustainability in BRI projects.