How coronavirus impacts China's Belt and Road initiative
coronavirus
The coronavirus is now threatening Chinese president Xi Jinping's dream project - Belt and Road (BRI).
From an artificial island in Sri Lanka to a bridge in Bangladesh and hydropower projects in Nepal and Indonesia.
The coronavirus outbreak has cut off Chinese labour supplies and equipment imports which are essential to keep major infrastructure projects across Asia running.
While China itself is under a massive lockdown and has self-imposed its biggest ever social isolation campaign. More than 133 countries have imposed entry restrictions on Chinese citizens to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Major construction projects across Asia, which are funded by China, mostly employ Chinese workers and countries are clamping down on their availability.
Sri Lanka requires a14-day quarantine for people arriving from China and insists that Chinese staff are restricted to construction sites and their dorms. This is taking a toll on some of the major construction sites.
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Work is progressing at snail's pace at Colombo's artificial island project site. Currentlyat this site, temperatures of all workers are taken several times a day, masks and hand sanitisers have been distributed as well. Also being built in the heart of Colombo, with Chinese state funding, is South Asia's tallest free-standing communications tower. The scheduled opening of that tower in March has been delayed by 2 months.
Nearly a third of the Chinese workers who left for the lunar new year holidays have not returned to work. And even if they do, the local staff are afraid to work with them.
Bangladesh too has stopped issuing visas to Chinese visitors including workers and that is crippling the $2.5 billion project at the southern port of Payra.
About 3,000 Chinese workers are employed at the Bangladesh - China power company.
China is also building the $3.5 billion Padma multipurpose bridge in Bangladesh where nearly one-third of the nearly 1000 Chinese workers are yet to return.
In Indonesia, work at the China-backed Batang Toru hydropower plant is stuck. The project on Sumatra island has ground to a halt due to a lack of Chinese workers.
Construction of the $6 billion Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project is also set to be delayed. Nepal too is home to more than a dozen Chinese-backed hydropower projects.
The setback from the coronavirus comes as a double whammy - there was already pushback against Belt and Road projects in many countries.
Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia all renegotiated contracts recently - either to cut costs or to ensure better environmental compliance.
However, China is still trying to downplay the impact. Last week, China's foreign minister Wang Yi was questioned specifically on China-backed investments in Asia. And, he said the outbreak will not have any negative impact that's more a case of what China is wishing for, rather than a true appraisal of the situation.