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G7 leaders sit around a table during their summit at the Carbis Bay Hotel in Carbis Bay, St. Ives, Cornwall, England, Friday, June 11, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP) - 

The Group of Seven rich nations will announce on Saturday (Jun 12) a new global infrastructure plan as a response to China's belt and road initiative, a senior official in US President Joe Biden's administration said.

The G7 is trying to find a coherent response to the growing assertiveness of President Xi Jinping after China's spectacular economic and military rise over the past 40 years.

"This is not just about confronting or taking on China," 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."

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure scheme launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping involving development and investment initiatives that would stretch from Asia to Europe and beyond.

More than 100 countries have signed agreements with China to cooperate in BRI projects like railways, ports, highways and other infrastructure.

Critics say Xi's plan to create a modern version of the ancient Silk Road trade route to link China with Asia, Europe and beyond is a vehicle for the expansion of Communist China. Beijing says such doubts betray the "imperial hangover" of many Western powers that humiliated China for centuries.

Leaders of the G7 - the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Japan - want to use their gathering in the seaside resort of Carbis Bay to show the world that the richest democracies can offer an alternative to China's growing clout.

There were no specifics on how the global infrastructure scheme would be funded. The plan would involve raising hundreds of billions in public and private money to help close a US$40 trillion infrastructure gap in needy countries by 2035, the official said

The aim was to work with Congress to supplement existing development financing "with the hope that together with G7 partners, the private sector and other stakeholders will soon be collectively catalysing hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries that need it"//CNA