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.

China’s next move is the subject of much speculation and worry for observers and enemies. The current conditions of today’s geopolitical stage should lead China towards its Southeast Asian neighbors in what may be its next international outreach campaign.

The world is largely off track in terms of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. But China’s Global Development Initiative and Belt and Road Initiative can work together for a better future.

The EU’s Global Gateway project is an answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and one that the EU hopes will provide a more liberal-led alternative to China’s investments. Whether or not a values-based approach to development will remain to be seen.

The historic completion of the Pelješac bridge in Croatia marks the first time a Chinese firm and the EU have completed a project together, setting the stage for the BRI’s implementation in Eastern Europe.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is clearly mapping out its ambitions for global influence challenging the primacy of the U.S. Now, Western allies have presented a B3W Partnership to challenge China with additional global infrastructure investment.

The Group of Seven’s (G7) fixation on China and Russia is problematic because member countries still have serious internal problems related to their domestic economies and income inequality.

The U.S. and others should help developing countries solve their problems, rather than using them as a playing field in a geopolitical competition with China. Excessive competition will not lead to the better world that the American president says he seeks.

Australia’s outlier history as a “Western” nation situated in the Pacific means it’s caught in the middle of simmering global tensions between China and the U.S.