Dr. Brad Parks, Executive Director of AidData, a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, stated that the U.S. and its allies have not successfully adapted to China’s evolving Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global infrastructure project initiated by China in 2013. Parks made this assertion during a May 16 hearing titled "All Roads Lead to Beijing? The CCP's Global Development Offensive."
"The U.S. and its G7 allies have underestimated the ambition of China's ongoing effort to reinvent its flagship, global infrastructure initiative," said Parks, according to Select Committee on the CCP. "They are focused on competing with a version of the BRI that no longer exists—BRI 1.0 rather than BRI 2.0."
According to his written statement presented before the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, AidData has been collecting data regarding BRI and China’s role in developing global infrastructure. "The program is vast," Parks said. "It consists of nearly 21,000 projects in 165 low-income and middle-income countries worth at least $1.34 trillion."
Parks further noted that "China is now the world’s single largest source of international development finance." During his testimony, he responded to queries about China’s motives for BRI and how it intends to use the program to enhance its competitive advantage on the international stage, using data collected by AidData Research Lab.
Towards the end of his testimony, Parks suggested ways for the United States to compete with BRI in global infrastructure development. He emphasized that not only should the US formulate an "infrastructure-specific" proposition regarding its involvement in developing nations but also develop a response mechanism to "advise and assist developing countries when they experience BRI buyer’s remorse." Parks insisted that such a response capability is necessary if "it wants to ensure that it can identify and respond to address the unmet needs of partner countries with alacrity."
In his concluding remarks, Parks proposed that "the U.S. and its G7 allies should lead a new international initiative on contract transparency that focuses on empowering leaders in the developing world with the information they need." This stance draws a contrast with China’s secretive approach to BRI. Parks' testimony calls for a revision of United States action concerning global infrastructure and the changing tactics of BRI.
According to the Center for Global Development's (CGD) website, in addition to his role at AidData, Parks is also a non-resident fellow at CGD. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and an M.Sc. in Development Management, with his research published in numerous outlets.