In 2011, the United Stats proposed a regional development initiative, the New Silk Road.
It sought to bolster peace and stability in Afghanistan and across the region by resuming traditional trade routes and reconstructing broken infrastructure links, connecting the battle-scarred country to Central Asia, Pakistan, India and beyond.
But the four-pronged initiative never took off and was dubbed a "misfire" by observers who believed that the project was under-funded and under-resourced and lacked Pacific-to-Atlantic scope.
A couple of years after that, China in 2013 shook the world by its trans-continental project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that aimed to revivify the ancient trade routes that had connected China to the Mediterranean via Eurasia for centuries through the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and oceangoing 21st century Maritime Link Road.
Billed as a Chinese vision, strategy and foreign policy, the initiative, within five years of its kickoff, established its worth by signing up more than 150 countries and organisations covering over 60 per cent of the world population, in addition to scooping the trade volume between Beijing and BRI nations to US$6 trillion, more than 30 per cent of the world gross domestic product.
China said by last year, Chinese investors had founded about 44,000 companies in more than 80 per cent of the countries and regions. At the end of last year, China was the third-largest foreign investor globally, behind the US and the Netherlands, with cumulative overseas investment of US$2.2 trillion, creating 2.27 million foreign employments and contributing US$56 billion in taxes to host countries and regions.
Realising the impact of the BRI on the global economy and China's transition from a manufacturing assembly hub to an economic powerhouse, the Geneva-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in August noted that nations can draw on significant lessons from the China experience to structurally transform their economies.
Without getting down to the nitty-gritty or probing the Chinese statistics, the BRI partners are keen to know how any major country can improve their infrastructure, increase trade, pour investment, alleviate poverty and revive virus-hit economies.
Nations would be least concerned whether Beijing sees the BRI as a transcontinental chef d'oeuvre or whether it is an "authoritarian world order" for Washington that is characterised by "debt-trap diplomacy", fraught with "bribery, resource extraction and opaque financial and commercial agreements" and "modern-day colonialism".
Most developing nations would see the rivalry between the two economic heavyweights as a strategic competition or the great power competition in which Washington fears that Beijing is trying to dethrone its global leadership through "predatory" lending so it must activate all channels to corrode the new engine of Chinese growth, the BRI.
As the US believes that under the initiative, China is seeking to become the global centre of trade, commerce and technology via a network of vassal states and sovereign economies that would be replaced with Communist Party of China-controlled satellite states, the situation has led into a full-blown cultural, educational, diplomatic, information, trade and technological war.
Washington's brimming nuisance about Beijing's growing influence and its moves — to slap tariffs on Chinese goods, sanction Huawei and other tech giants, designate Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, expel Chinese students, scale back diplomatic ties and develop strategic groupings like the Quad — make it apparent that the US isn't going to allow China to weaken its global dominance and power projection.
Taking reciprocal measures, China, too, has demonstrated its alacrity to clap back at the US to protect its interests and billions in investments. A tug of war where neither side is willing to retreat will force nations, especially developing ones, to make a clear choice between the two colossi.
Lately, the US' pushback at the BRI initiative took a beating after experts said BRI projects were "overwhelmingly nonstrategic investments" in Malaysia, African rising debt levels weren't China-made and China was renegotiating several contracts with Southeast Asian nations over uncertainties around their economies.
In addition, Chinese key strategic allies like Sri Lanka and Pakistan have repeatedly refuted accusations that BRI loans were weighing down their economies. As Islamabad links its future with China, Colombo also continues to acknowledge Beijing's assistance in the development of the country's infrastructure.
As China makes headway to become the only major economy recording positive growth in 2020 as swarms of governments sign on to the BRI, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to affront economies worldwide and as research dispels the US' claims on China, it appears that Washington's notions on "Chinese debt-trap" diplomacy is being outshined by China's "win-win cooperation", challenging the new White House dweller to come up with a totally reformed strategy.
The writer is an international commentator and opinion contributor to CGTN and 'The Express Tribune', a partner of The International New York Times, and writes on geopolitical issues and regional conflicts
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times