"The contrast between the sheer banality of much present-day Western policy and ambition led by economists and lawyers with one led by engineers (as in the case of OBOR) could not be more vivid."
TJ,
There has never been a lack of vision nor capital to fund grandiose infrastructure projects in less developed countries. The major A&E and construction firms (Bechtel, GE, Siemens, Chinese SOEs etc, etc.) have always lined up at the trough of the World Bank, ADB, Import/Export Bank, UN...to divvy up the spoils of "helping" the poor countries of the world.
In my experience in consulting on energy projects in developing countries, operations and maintenance are the crucial factors in determining success or failure.
Most developing countries lack appropriate management and technical expertise to make complex projects succeed. The generous offer of the "vision" country to provide such expertise as often as not backfires due to resentment in the host country. Does the PRC really believe this is a USA-centric problem? Does the PRC really want to get bogged down in numerous tarbabies in order to "protect" their OBOR investments?
In addition to poor management, outright theft and graft are a major problem in many developing countries...a major reason they are always "developing". Theft of product, theft of services, failure to collect revenue, diversion of revenue into politician pockets...all leading to a shortage of revenue to properly maintain the capital investment. Without proper maintenance, the economic value of the investment declines into a downward spiral. At this point OBOR faces a major quandary: allow the investment value to decline, or let it become a black hole of many billions more in maintenance.
Most developing countries will gladly accept capital from TPTB, but they consider the revenues generated to be theirs. I was involved in one power plant project where they had no real transmission and distribution infrastructure, no metering of usage, and no infrastructure for billing and collection of revenues. There was actually local political opposition to metering and billing because most of the power was being stolen by a few politically connected families for their factories and facilities. To hell with the poor people.
Jay, I understand the Chinese pride at becoming a major world player, but I will reserve my judgement on OBOR until it reaches the O&M phase.
btw, I don't speak mandarin, but I'm willing to consult on OBOR. Perhaps I can help them avoid repeating some of the worst Team USA disasters.
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