In the run-up to last Friday’s U.S.-Japan summit at the White House, there had been a lot of talk that President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga would announce a new initiative to challenge China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In the end, it turned out that the two leaders did not address infrastructure development in their summit’s joint statement but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of enthusiasm in both Washington and Tokyo to come up with a way to stem China’s lead in building infrastructure throughout the Global South.