A Chinese mine in Morococha. Peru brings into focus some of the challenges that come with China’s vision of expanding its global investments.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has come under fire for its white elephant projects – ‘never-to-be-recovered’ infrastructure projects that provide little value to recipient states. Rather, infrastructure investments have to be focused on quality and impact rather than mere quantity and volume – otherwise, the impacts of such investments will be marginal.

China must perform a difficult balancing act.

Though China forged a new economic relationship with Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, the PRC’s continued presence is almost guaranteed through the need for Venezuelan oil.

The Chinese economy is still going strong, though some changes are in order.

The third round of US-China trade talks were "productive," according to US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, although no clear resolution has been made to end the protracted trade war. The most recent trade talks, which concluded in Beijing this Friday, resulted in pledges to increase purchases of US goods, including $200 billion of US semiconductors over six years, but made questionable headway on 'structural issues' long contested by US lawmakers, which include "forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights, cyber theft, agriculture, services, non-tariff barriers, and currency," according to the White House.

Under President Obama, the US-China relationship was viewed as critical and treated with care. Now, under President Trump, China hawks dominate US foreign policy. How did we get there, and what will it mean for “the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century”?

The writing on the wall for China isn't good. Can the global economy cope with it?

The “America First” objective is based on a zero-sum mentality, rather than economic reality. While it seeks to advance American interests at the cost of other nations, this policy is ultimately the most detrimental to the US.

In the postwar era, the multilateral development banks were created to facilitate global trade. Today, they are ‘America First’ targets.