Critics often claim that China is using its massive “Belt and Road Initiative” as a form of coercive “debt-trap diplomacy” to exert control over the countries that join its transnational infrastructure investment scheme. This risk, as Deborah Brautigam of John Hopkins University recently noted, is often exaggerated by the media. In fact, the BRI may hold a different kind of risk – for China itself.

Originally billed as "short-term pain," the US-China trade war unfolds into long-term troubles.

Why was the Chinese government unwilling to accept Trump’s last minute demands during trade talks? Look to history: 2019 marks the centenary of the anti-imperialist May 4th movement. China can hardly be accepted to surrender to a 21st-century “unequal treaty”—if the US government understood this aspect of Chinese culture better, negotiations would proceed more smoothly.

The trade war has not gone as U.S. policymakers expected—China has not given up easily. This overconfidence came from an inflated view of America’s market boom, which is merely a short-term “sugar high” produced by Republican tax cuts. A more serious misjudgment was underestimating China’s economic strength and national resolve.

While the trade war clearly hurts China more than the US, in both absolute and relative terms, data and historical experience show that these losses are manageable for the Chinese economy.

While the current China-US trade war is undoubtedly hurting both economies, the conflict may prove beneficial Chinese society in the long sweep of history—the conflict may provide a catalyst to push forward a new model of Chinese reform and opening based on high standards.

Although the latest round of China-US trade talks has ended without agreement, the door to dialogue remains opens. Overall, the level of economic interdependence between the two sides’ makes imposing tariffs a self-defeating tactic — the Sino-US relationship is “too big to fail.”

While China’s Belt and Road Initiative offers a solution to problems that require international assistance to address, this is not Beijing’s altruism at work. The BRI is still a money-making investment and an opportunity for China to increase its connectivity throughout the globe.

America’s top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, recently attacked China’s Arctic activities. But this criticism lacks coherence and a basis in international law — China’s proposed “Polar Silk Road,” among other projects including infrastructure and scientific research, are lawful and mutually beneficial.

It is impossible to predict the full environmental impact of the Belt and Road Initiative, so it is critical that Chinese authorities take full advantage of every opportunity to consciously build a greener Belt and Road.