Can China Help Chart a Third Path for Development?

Ecological Damage

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In the footsteps of Western colonial powers in extracting resources overseas and engaging in "environmental imperialism".

ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE Critics have long taken aim at the BRI for relocating polluting industries to poorer countries and wreaking environmental damage with its infrastructure projects, prompting China to propose in 2017 a "Green BRI" that would promote sustainable projects.

In 2021, President Xi Jinping took this further by pledging that China will no longer build coal-fired power plants abroad.

Yet, it has continued to invest in coal activities overseas, research has shown. The recent BRI report identified over US$1.58 billion in contracts for coal-related activities. State-owned power construction company, PowerChina, is developing a coal mine in Mongolia, while China Railway is building a rail network in Indonesia to transport coal.

"The mining projects have a long way to go to live up to the requirement from China's leadership that the BRI should be green," Mr Myllyvirta, who has been tracking coal plants linked to metals processing, and weak emission controls in the plants and smelters, told The Straits Times.

"These are symptoms of a broader weakness in environmental governance of overseas projects, especially in countries such as Indonesia and Myanmar where environmental regulation is weak and poorly enforced."