The Group of Seven countries plans to raise $600 billion for an infrastructure program rival to China's Belt and Road Initiative.
The United States aims to raise $200 billion in private and public funds over five years to fund needed infrastructure in developing countries under a Group of Seven (G-7) initiative aimed at countering China's multitrillion-dollar Belt and Road project, the White House said on Sunday.
U.S. President Joe Biden will unveil the plans, flanked by other G-7 leaders, some of whom have already unveiled their own separate initiatives, at their annual gathering being held this year at Schloss Elmau in southern Germany.
Increasingly worried about China, the G-7 leaders first floated plans for the project last year, and are formally launching it now under a fresh title, "Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment," while dropping the moniker "Build Back Better World," first coined by Biden during his presidential campaign.
Biden will unveil several specific projects at a G-7 side event, joined by leaders from Britain, Germany, Japan, the European Union and Canada, vowing to focus on projects that help tackle climate change as well as improve global health, gender equity and digital infrastructure. Notably absent will be French President Emmanual Macron, who had formally joined the Chinese infrastructure program.
Proposed by Biden at a G-7 summit in 2021, the deal will focus on investments in "climate-resilient infrastructure," tackling the climate crisis, improving global energy security and digital technology, and bolstering gender equality and health care infrastructure.
Biden construed the plan as an alternative to China's massive Belt and Road infrastructure investment project, a trillion-dollar plan to build infrastructure across Africa, Asia and Europe, which is considered a security issue by many Western leaders.
White House official John Kirby said on Saturday that policy toward China would top Washington's agenda for the summit. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently highlighted China as the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.
