The REAL Reason The USA Is SCARED Of China | Ali Borhani

## A recalibration, not an apocalypse The central argument running through the conversation is clear: what much of the West interprets as a looming Chinese threat is better understood as a systemic shift toward a more multipolar world in which China pursues continuity, connectivity, and capability-building rather than sudden, existential confrontation. The anxiety is real—some policymakers and commentators read every Chinese move as intent to topple the international order—but the practical pattern on the ground looks different. China is focused on infrastructure, trade integration, and upgrading industrial capacity; the United States, by contrast, often deploys coercive tools that can create instability at global scale. Understanding the gap between rhetoric and tangible outcomes is essential for businesses and policymakers seeking to navigate this transition. ## Macro assessment: from unipolarity to competitive pluralism The conversation situates us in a world that is shifting away from unipolar dominance toward competitive pluralism, with strong bipolar features. This is not a sudden collapse but a long-term rebalancing. Polling data and visible outcomes in the Global South matter: for the first time in a global Ipsos poll, a plurality judged China’s impact as positive. That matters because foreign policy and influence are not only about military power or great-power grandstanding; they are about tangible provision—roads, ports, power plants, and predictable trade relationships. Where Washington has offered aspirational programs with limited capital behind them, Chinese financing has produced highly visible results. This is why many governments outside the West are making pragmatic choices, not existential pledges. Geopolitical rivalry has hardened measures—tariffs, sanctions, and financial weaponization—but those are policy tools. The more consequential evolution may be in how the world responds: whether states double down on alignment with one pole or pursue hedging and diversification. For many countries the calculus is straightforward: they want infrastructure and investment more than ideological conflict. That practical preference shapes the geopolitics of the coming decade. ## Belt and Road: connectivity, capacity, and demand The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), officially launched in 2013, is less a sudden adventure than the outward projection of decades of capacity-building. The initiative is as much a response to China’s domestic economic needs—surplus industrial capacity, technologies, and labor—as it is a foreign policy design. For many recipient countries, BRI fills a persistent infrastructure gap. The striking difference in scale is key: roughly $1.5 trillion of investments under the BRI compared to the much smaller sums committed to Western alternatives like Build Back Better World or the EU’s Global Gateway. Crucially, the popularity of BRI projects cannot be reduced to Chinese coercion. Many governments actively seek these projects because they meet urgent and visible needs—railways, ports, power plants, factories. The metaphor from the conversation is apt: Western cultural exports can entertain, but they cannot build the stadiums that host the performers. BRI succeeds where it satisfies demand at a competitive price point and with technological capability that has matured significantly in China. ## Chinese multinationals: rising competition and strategic depth A central finding of the research discussed is the rapid ascent of Chinese multinationals across wide swathes of industry. Interviews with Western CEOs and directors revealed a striking consensus: Chinese firms now compete on price and increasingly on quality. In sectors ranging from automotive to renewables to industrial equipment, incumbents no longer have the luxury of assuming invulnerability. Some industries find that the gap has already closed; others have only delayed confronting the competitive pressure. This commercial rise is not accidental. It tracks a deliberate long-term strategy: industrial upgrading, domestic demand stimulation, and global expansion—all underpinned by state capacity to direct finance and align incentives. The conversation also raised an intriguing cultural point about leadership backgrounds: a streak of engineers in China’s political leadership has emphasized technocratic, infrastructure-oriented problem solving. Whether that is causal is open to debate, but the result is tangible: industrial policy that pushes firms up the value chain and abroad. For businesses, the lesson is simple: competition is structural and strategic, not episodic. Multinationals must reassess product strategies, supply chains, and go-to-market approaches in light of firms that combine cost competitiveness with increasingly sophisticated technology. ## The housing myth and the limits of doom-saying Western narratives have repeatedly predicted a catastrophic implosion in China’s property sector, often invoking doomsday scenarios with echoes of 2008. Yet the conversation highlights why these forecasts have been overstated. China’s real estate problems are serious—overbuilding, local-government financing pressures, and the moral hazard implications of “property-as-asset” mentality—but the macro-economic picture differs from Western crises in one crucial respect: currency and liability structure. Most of the real estate debt is denominated in renminbi, which reduces the risk of a debt shock spilling into a foreign-exchange crisis. Beijing has tools—state banks, control over domestic liquidity, and a political willingness to manage a managed slowdown—that make a systemic financial collapse less likely than headline writers often assume. Moreover, the policy pivot has been visible: regulatory pressure to reorient lending toward industrial and technological sectors, and an emphasis on housing as shelter rather than speculative asset, indicate deliberate containment rather than laissez-faire collapse. The broader implication is that Western observers often project their institutional models onto China and assume the same failure modes. That’s a dangerous habit. China’s crisis pathways differ; so do the remedies and the political willingness to deploy them. ## Instruments of competition: weaponization and strategic decoupling The conversation underscored an important asymmetry in how great-power competition is being waged. The United States has increasingly turned to “weaponized” economic instruments—sanctions, dollar-centric financial tools, investment screening, and tariffs. These are powerful levers, but they can be blunt and destabilizing, particularly when widened to global scale. China’s parallel strategy has been to reduce vulnerability through dual circulation: strengthening domestic consumption and industry while expanding global markets and supply networks to absorb excess capacity. A related theme is de-risking and selective decoupling. China recognizes the risks of external dependence—especially in strategic technologies and supply chains—and is working to internalize capabilities while deepening ties with willing partners globally. This is not the same as a wholesale retreat from globalization; it is a reconfiguration that combines resilience with outreach. For many countries and companies, the practical challenge is to manage exposure on both sides: maintaining access to Western capital and markets while engaging with China’s large and growing economic space. ## Infrastructure investment gap and strategic consequences One of the conversation’s most consequential points is the sheer scale of investment disparity. Where China has deployed vast sums into global infrastructure, Western initiatives have often been comparatively underfunded or reallocated to other priorities. This funding gap has geopolitical consequences: infrastructure builds tangible dependencies and goodwill, and it cements commercial relationships over decades. The strategic ef

The REAL Reason The USA Is SCARED Of China | Ali Borhani Today I’m talking to Ali Borhani, a Geopolitical Strategist and the cohost of the BRI-Diaolgue podcast on which he talks to, experts, decision makers, and academics about all thins geopolitics and especially China’s Belt Road Initiative. In fact, Ali has been watching China very closely and included his findings in a report entitled “The Rise of Chinese Multinationals”. His insights are business focused and business relevant, so that’s what we want to discuss today. Links: Ali's China Report: https://chinareport.mediapad.eu/en Ali's advisory firm: https://www.3sixtystrategicadvisors.com /china-special-report/ My Interview on BRI-Dialogue: https://youtu.be/n-m9MBQGzXY? si=K7gAkhwRmxbXiBhh Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:05 Ali's view on the current geopolitical landscape 07:17 China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 19:48 The west's narrative of China's impending housing market implosion 26:44 China's still modest response to Trump's tariffs 33:17 Will John Mearsheimer's prediction about China come true? 45:03 Why is China able to invest more than USA into infrastructure? 52:33 Advice to companies for the coming months #M3 China needs stability. The United States, on the other hand, could really, like an old drunken fellow in a bar who's still asking for a free drink, turn the tables over and create a mess in the pub—at the global level. The rest of the patrons would just like to have a drink and talk about how they can go about their way. Can you stir up China, as Professor Mearsheimer is saying? They can. And can China lash back? They can. But is China here to systematically uproot Europe and the United States? I totally disagree. I don't think so, at least not in our lifetimes or in another. You know, you see this "trap" and all of these things make nice taglines and headlines for think tanks and the papers that are shuffled out. China needs continuity in commerce. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Ali Borhani, a geopolitical strategist and the co-host of the BRI Dialogue podcast, on which he talks to experts, decision makers, and academics about all things geopolitics, and especially about China's Belt and Road Initiative. In fact, Ali has been watching China very closely and included his findings in a report that he entitled "The Rise of Chinese Multinationals." His insights are business-focused and business- relevant. So this business side of things is what we want to discuss today. Ali, welcome. #M3 -- 1 of 16 -- Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you, Pascal. #M2 Well, thank you very much for coming online. You invited me to your podcast before, and you asked me questions that let me explain my points very happily. I will link to that discussion in the description here as well. But today, I would like to have the chance to focus on you and your view on geopolitics, and especially on China. Could you, first of all, give us your overall macro assessment of where we are in 2025? #M3 Well, it's a pleasure to be with you. I think we live in interesting times. So maybe it's apt to start with a quote—not from Ali, but let me read it for you and your audience. The Chinese have been able to preserve their empire for 4,000 years. Long ago, they already had inventions that the Europeans proudly believed they had discovered—namely, printing, gunpowder, the compass, steel weaving, the decimal system, and so many other things. The Chinese have ancient classics full of deep wisdom and philosophical insights, far superior to our classical antiquity. And unlike the Europeans, they had the good sense to apply these ancient ideas to the actual practice of government, which shows how intelligent they are. They're not Christians, but they have hospitals for orphans, the old, and the sick. They have welfare offices where food is provided for the destitute and medicine for the ill. Along the roads—and I'll come back to that because we live in the time of the Belt and Road Initiative—they provide shelters for the free use of travelers. How dare anyone say that a nation displaying such enlightenment, generosity, and wisdom is in any way inferior to us Europeans? That is Père Gabé, a French missionary in China in 1845, Pascal. The reason I'm reading that quote is interesting, because we live in the time of labeling. At the macro level, the latest assessment between the two superpowers was J.D. Vance's comments about the peasants and buying from the peasants. So we are at the crux of moving from a unipolar world order to, I would say, a multipolar one, but with a significant presence of bipolar architects, actors, and contenders. At the macro level, I think the challenge today—whether you're in the Global South or among the global majority, whether you're in Ottawa today with Mark Carney, or in Copenhagen, or in Mexico City, or, for that matter, anywhere around the world, or in Beijing—the key question is: What is the United States going to do, and how is it going to posture? And that is sending various messages to capitals, to markets, to all of the decision makers. I think we have to look at that in the context of this rivalry and the rising heat in Europe. By weaponization, I'm talking about the weaponization of dollars and sanctions, the weaponization of tariffs at the moment, and trade flows. The key question is: what next? Will that be a weaponization of capital -- 2 of 16 -- markets, foreign direct investment, and the flow of capital? Interestingly enough, at the macro level—because you asked me—it seems that the world is changing its posture as well. And I'm not talking about the Western Hemisphere; I'm talking about the Global South and the majority. In the latest Ipsos poll, 48% of people polled around the world for the very first time said that they think China has a positive impact on the world, while the United States is at 46%. This is the first time that, in a global poll, the majority think that China’s posturing is more positive than that of the incumbent, which is the United States, over the past 50 years. And sticking with that element of macro optics, Pascal, I think part of it as well is what people see and hear and the tangibility of what they can touch and feel. You know, the United States came out with Build Back a Better World, and Europe with Global Gateway. And regardless of the fact that some of the BRI's 1.0 initiatives had their own handicaps and challenges, there is still a railway between Mombasa and Nairobi, and people can feel and touch it. One and a half trillion has gone into hard infrastructure around the world, and people are beneficiaries of these investments in the Global South and among the global majority. Meanwhile, only 50 billion has been allocated for Build Back a Better World, while around 300 billion has been shifted to Ukraine. So, in the eyes of the world’s macro optics, people see things in a different light. And I think this is a trend, Pascal, in my opinion. #M2 It's, of course, very interesting because, you know, BRI—the Belt and Road Initiative—is China's catchphrase for its foreign investments, right? Its strategic foreign investments. And this, in the US and in Europe, has often been portrayed as aggressive and predatory, trying to exploit poor countries' dependencies on Chinese money. It's quite fantastic to me how this has been spun into something very negative. Could you maybe tell me again, when did China start with the BRI, and how did it strategically develop? And why is it that they frame it as the Belt and Road Initiative, this connectivity factor in their investments? #M3 Sure. The official announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative was in 2013, and that was a key, centerpiece announcement and initiative by President Xi. But China had been preparing for the BRI long before that. A great part of this was the foresight and realization—the long-term planning—that they have demographic issues, and they need to push their extra capacity, extra capabilities, and their standards outside to global markets. China remains a dependent nation for many of its needs, whether it's agri-food commodities, food security, or energy. At the same time, China realized that, as they were upgrading their capacities, capabilities, and standards, they had to go out. This "going out" was a conscious decision by China. -- 3 of 16 -- And today, Pascal, if you look at the Belt and Road Initiative, which you rightly said has been painted in a very predatory way—mind you, on BRI Dialogues, we've had guests from NYU Stern School of Business in the United States and experts who have categorically come out and said the debt, the colossal debt of the Global South to the IMF and World Bank, is far bigger than what they owe to China. And restructuring that debt is much easier with the Chinese in many ways, rather than with the, I would say, legacy institutions. But the reality is that China, at the end of the day, has mastered certain sectors and industries, and these capacities and capabilities have reached their limits and bandwidths at home. I'll come back to this a bit later in our conversation. I hope we'll have a chance to talk about renewables and where China is going with renewables. But today, China is setting up a port in Peru, increasing its infrastructure investments in Latin America, and setting up a BYD factory, probably in Turkey. So part of all of this is a demand from the Global South as well, with technology, innovation, and a price point that China is able to meet. So the quality improvement, the price affordability, and the needs of the Global South have converged through this BRI. So it takes two to tango. It's not something that China is going and force-feeding—roads, autobahns, water dams, and hospitals—to these nations. These countries have needs for this infrastructure. I was joking at a conference in Montreal last June, and my fellow panelist said, "Oh, but, you know, the United States still has cultural dominance." And I said, yes, you can still bring Taylor Swift or, I don't know, Beyoncé, but they need a stadium to hold that concert. The Chinese will bring the stadium; you bring Beyoncé. So I think the infrastructure gap has presented itself as a great opportunity for China to push through BRI and meet the need. So that is it in a nutshell, and I hope I was able to answer your question. And by the way, just for contrast, the Global Gateway has been around 280 to 300 billion deployed by the entire EU for countering the Belt and Road Initiative. BRI has been roughly one and a half trillion dollars so far and counting, and the US Build Back Better World, so far according to our research, is around 50 to 70 billion dollars. That's a massive gap. #M2 I mean, in short, China's strategy at the moment seems to be massive investment into global infrastructure, right? Providing, or let's call them, Global South countries with what they need in order to also link up with China in this modern-day trade route. So in a sense, it's Belt and Road— not just physical roads, but also all the rest that you need for all the corridors to function and for sea lanes of communication to function. Now, you wrote this special report about China, and you're also framing it around multinationals. I think what intrigues me there is the role of how the Chinese private economy is obviously supposed to benefit from this global infrastructure that the Chinese state is now building. Could you maybe talk about that a bit, and what to expect—how open this infrastructure will be for others who might also want to use it? #M3 -- 4 of 16 -- Sure. This is a report that was in the making, and I have to say it was co-authored by myself and my fellow partner in this initiative, Nenad Pacek, who is a renowned economist and used to be the vice president of the Economist Intelligence Unit for a long, long time and now runs his own practice. We took alm