This vision enables the Kremlin to maintain an appearance that it retains the political initiative in its neighbourhood," Marcin Kaczmarski and Witold Rodkiewicz said in a report for the Center for Eastern Studies, a Warsaw think tank. Baucus called the move a "large geopolitical mistake.American officials say Washington wants to work with China on infrastructure." The Silk Road process, he said, is "a different way to address nations that they’ve had difficulty connecting with." That might add to debt burdens in countries where dealing with Beijing can be politically sensitive. This year, the government’s Export-Import Bank of China said it would finance 1,000 projects in 49 countries.South Korea launched its "Eurasia Initiative" in 2013 to develop rail, trade and energy links across the two Koreas and Russia to Europe.Beijing: In a mountain valley in Kashmir, plans are underway for Chinese engineers guarded by Pakistani forces to expand the lofty Karakoram Highway in a project that is stirring diplomatic friction with India."

You name a part of the world, the Chinese are probably there, looking to put investments in."China is giving most contracts for energy projects to its own companies without even consulting Pakistan," said Azeem Khalid, a lecturer at the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South, a non-government group in Islamabad.Sri Lanka’s former president suffered a surprise election defeat in 2015 after his challenger criticised him for running up an estimated $5 billion in debt to China."They clearly have a strategy, through their investments," Coats said.Countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan welcome it as a path out of poverty.The $2."The bulk of Chinese financing is to be loans, which Ou said will be mostly on commercial terms based on "market principles. It links China’s far western region of Xinjiang with the Chinese-built port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. But when you’re not there, there is a void that China’s going to fill,’" Baucus told The Associated Press.

China muscled aside Japan in 2015 to win a contract to build a $5. But since Xi announced it in 2013, Beijing has launched dozens of projects from railways in Tajikistan, Thailand and Kenya to power plants in Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan, financed mostly by Chinese loans. China’s premier has cited the promoting of Chinese standards abroad as one of Beijing’s goals. They have given few details, raising questions about whether other projects can pay for themselves. "They’re very concerned."China’s new Silk Road initiative is ramping up as President Donald Trump focuses on domestic issues, downplaying foreign affairs."The Jokowi government must balance its desire for capital and expertise with a need to guard against a populist, anti-Chinese backlash," said Hugo Brennan, an analyst at political risk firm Verisk Maplecroft.In this November 13, 2016 file photo, a Pakistan Navy soldier stands guard while a loaded Chinese ship prepares to depart from Gwadar port that links to Chinas far western region on a new international route exporting goods to West Asia and Africa, about 700km (435 miles) west of Karachi.

But governments from Washington to Moscow to New Delhi worry Beijing also is trying to build its own political influence and erode theirs."William A Callahan, an international relations specialist at the London School of Economics, said China is trying to change the way the political structure of the region works."The Chinese government has never wished to control any other country’s government," a cabinet official, Ou Xiaoli, told The AP. "‘We’re going to have to bow to their standards and if they’re Chinese standards, then Chinese companies are going to have an advantage over our companies in our country,’" the former US ambassador described officials as telling him.The state-run China Wholesale PPR ELBOW Manufacturers Development Bank announced in 2015 it had set aside $890 billion for more than 900 "One Belt, One Road" projects across 60 countries in gas, minerals, power, telecoms, infrastructure and farming.