The Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway is a milestone project under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This project reflects China's emphasis on history and neighborhood diplomacy, underlining its role as a leader in the Global South. Additionally, there are challenges alternative initiatives face in competing with China's vast infrastructure endeavors, as Beijing prioritizes economics and geopolitics in its approach.

China pioneered the Belt and Road Initiative, but others have followed its lead. The BRI has been hailed as the largest international cooperation platform producing the most popular public benefits in the world today.

In 10th anniversary year of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping, the international landscape is subject to changes like never before. China’s adaptations have proved successful and hold promise for future world peace.

Italy’s Belt and Road engagement, which was led by the previous liberal administration, is coming to an end, but the inroads China has made in Italy means that creating distance can’t be done with the stroke of a pen.

China no longer needs to move mountains or reclaim seas, as in ancient legend. Through technology, infrastructure, trade, finance, people and government policies such barriers have long since vanished. The BRI does, however, revive an essential ancient spirit.

Recent headlines have broadcasted the Gulf Cooperation Council’s new deal with China, with tens of billions of dollars. Some may see it as a signal of a coming divorce with the West, but careful analysis reveals that the GCC can balance relations to both sides.

The race of geopolitical strategies based on infrastructural development abroad is a part of the new great powers rivalry. The so-called geo-economics contest (Luttwak) is the new global battle, a competition through commerce for getting economic advantages at the intersection of investments and loans, contracts opportunities, conquest of more worldwide market share and improvement of own supply chains, with the declared noble aim of contributing to global development.

The ability authors, musicians, and filmmakers have to tell stories can transcend geopolitics, but the current state of U.S.-China affairs offers almost nothing in terms of a meeting ground for the creatives of either side to exchange ideas. Repairing the cross-Pacific relationship will only get harder if big thinkers and storytellers cannot find a way to communicate.

In its pursuit for unipolar primacy, the Biden administration is risking the economic stability of China, the West, emerging Asia, and the futures of the Global South.

Pacific Island countries can benefit from both China and the United States, so their best choice is to cooperate with both. The new alignment will not disturb friendly relations between China and the islands.