Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP Photos
- G7 members plan to announce an international spending initiative to rival China's Belt and Road.
- They will be "collectively catalyzing hundreds of billions of dollars," a US official said.
- Proposals amounted to "bloc politics," and were "doomed to fail," said China's Foreign Ministry.
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President Joe Biden and the G7 member states on Saturday planned to announce a multibillion-dollar initiative to build infrastructure overseas, a direct challenge to China's Belt and Road Initiative.
"There is, by some estimates, a $40 trillion infrastructure gap in parts of the world that this would be intended to help other countries fill," said a senior US administration official, who spoke about the plans on the condition of anonymity.
Biden and his G7 counterparts planned to announce the initiative during a working session focused on China on Saturday, the second day of the summit in Carbis Bay, England.
The Biden administration and international allies planned to "soon be collectively catalyzing hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries that need it," the official said.
The plan would place the wealthy G7 nations – US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the EU – in competition with Beijing's spending on international infrastructure.
Under President Xi Jinping, China spearheaded a new "Silk Road" initiative to build or improve transportation networks throughout Asia and reaching into Europe.
The trillions of dollars spent so far by Beijing have increased the country's ability to ship goods, while also building international goodwill.
US officials on Friday said the G7 spending wouldn't be about "making countries choose between us and china," but would instead be about "offering an affirmative, alternative vision and approach that they would want to choose."
Wang Wenbin, China's foreign ministry spokesperson, said of the G7 plans, "Ganging up, pursuing bloc politics, and forming small cliques are unpopular and doomed to fail."
Biden's White House was calling the initiative "Build Back Better for the World," expanding on Biden's 2020 campaign tagline of "Build Back Better." An official called it "B3W" as a shorthand.
The White House and its G7 partners have "long been skeptical about China's Belt and Road Initiative," a second senior administration official said.
"We've seen the Chinese government demonstrate a lack of transparency, poor environmental and labor standards, and a course of approach that's left many countries worse off," the official said. "But until now, we haven't offered a positive alternative that reflects our values, our standards, and our way of doing business."