the party in trying to his philosophy with the title xi jinping thoughts on socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era some say the initiative is an indication of chinese expansionism supporters at home and abroad say the move will not only help china but many other nations as well arty's out some highly joins us from toronto with more on this alex president she's belton road policy as we said it was in trying to this constitution surprise for a lot of people tell us about that. well what's interesting is that you have something in shrines in the constitution that not necessarily is within the only the borders of china this expands way beyond the borders of china as you mentioned we're talking about sixty countries to be affected by this and if you just bring up a map you will see right now exactly what this looks like so it's the old silk road as i mean it's one of the highlights of the new version here all the way to london we already have a train route that goes from china to there so we're talking about transportation we're talking about trains we're talking about roads for for trucks and cars we're

talking about maritime routes you can see all that on this map which is very very clear sixty countries of continents include europe asia and of course oceana which is new zealand and australia and when you look at how broad this actually is it's basically a hole in compass and except for us here on the other half of the world which would be north and south america do some of the points here and here's here's some interesting like just a breakdown of what the chinese government is saying they're saying the opportunities are in five key areas here that includes policy coordination with other nations that are all going to be a part of this this expansion of sorts the facilities connectivity so we're talking about energy we're talking about power grids except for a trade and investment which is pretty obvious financial integration and cultural exchange now that was the sort of fluffy one at the end but any way that you turn it this really is a project that brings china to the center of the world and connects other countries

to china as an economic powerhouse you notice they put the fucking line right behind a scary line like this financial incentive ration what does the breadth of this project mean for president power. well you know something that you mentioned off the top for president gene this is this is massive he is now entrenched in the constitution this is his initiative we haven't seen the likes of this since now so for him he's taken his stake in china we don't see anybody coming up after gee there's no heir apparent after g so he really is now the one and only person in china that makes all the decisions and that this could be good and that could be bad for us looking from the west and in our democratic ways you know it's a scary thing but you have to think about the way china has worked for millenia for the past four thousand years be it a empire or be it a president china has always had a very strong centralized system and that's for many reasons you have to talk about eighteen different language languages i don't know how many cultures exist in china

it's a big country with a lot of diversity and to keep this diversity together sometimes you need a strong centralized government and that's what china is banking on and that's what g.e. is banking on plays doing very well at it and it would seem but let's go beyond china and talk about the countries that this new silk road essentially is winding through what's the effect for that i know every country is going to be different but there's got to be a sad thing about what they stand to lose or to gain. lot of people are saying they're going to gain including countries like australia no look this is a policy to push forward to it's empire building let's not look at it as anything other than that but it's empire building through money not through bomb so what we've seen the states do in the past when they tried to do their expansionist things this is a very different way of doing it there is an expansionism there is an integration but at the same time it's the carrot not the stick at work here countries are looking at this they know how big of a power china is and as far as we can see you know they're seeing this as an

opportunity to make money so i can normally speaking for most this is a good thing a new style of empire building very interesting to see what's in store thank you very much alex for highly match coming at us from toronto thank you. want to add china lotter is not is not just looking at president xi in trade she's looking at the succession of power i caught up with daniel de martino both the president of money strong and the author of fed up an insider's take on why the federal reserve is bad for america take a listen well i think that he has solidified his power base to a tremendous extent i'm such a dork that i stayed up until midnight eastern time last wednesday just to see the individuals he was going to parade out on to that great red carpet with who represent the six men of his standing committee and sure enough not one of them was in his fifty's and without getting too detailed that means that he has not chosen

a successor for twenty twenty two he brought people out who were his peers she is sixty four years old but he brought people out who i think he sees going with him over the next not just five but ten years we have seen with our own eyes the next. you have so you you really do think that it's that solid that we are looking at someone without sort of stature that it's literally just it's in concrete. look i think it's part of their culture you don't lose face in asian cultures it's just not how it's done i think that whatever the back door wrangling might or might not have constituted i don't think that the powers that be would have allowed president xi to present himself as such a strong man as as a one man running this massive country if there weren't many deliberations that backed that up and he's done

a splendid job over the past five years of solidifying china's position so there were probably very few arguments to push back against him saying i'm sixty four years old i've still got a lot of gas in the engine let's take china into a position where we supersede the size of the u.s. economy a lot of ambitious talk at the nineteenth congress of the communist party china watchers have paid a lot of attention to succession as obviously you have as well let's focus so on the chinese economy. it's had its credit downgraded just just one sort of bad thing it's had to deal with china of course disapproves of that how is. the president been a guiding the chinese economy. well i would say he's been very forthright in guiding the chinese economy they recently came back to the debt market the country of china the sovereign debt and that particular issue was eleven times oversubscribed so use and this is foreign demand so you see there's a lot of there's

a lot of optimism in presidencies ability to thread this needle by the same token i don't think that there's any coincidence that in the days that followed the recess of the congress we find out that the services sector is slowing and that the manufacturing sector is slowing put a lot of gas into the engine to push economic growth towards that seven percent mark for optics going into this this twice a decade congress and now i think we're going to have to sit back and see how much of that was smoke and mirrors and what is going to be coming back in terms of backlash in the weeks and the months to come that that proves that the economy was not as strong as what she wanted to be portrayed well speaking of you know into the future with trade what's called it basically a signature feature of she's contribution to china's geo political place in the world belt road initiative it's essentially silk road two point zero for

a lot of people that's what it's being called the trade links the conic to vittie around the world covering a vast vast area after the nineteenth congress. concluded what we had in the constitution was this wording following the principle of share growth through discussion and collaboration and pursuing the belt road initiative talking about overtaking up through twenty fifty what do you think of this statement and the ambition in it for this level of a trade network. well i think that we have to approach silk road two point zero and for that matter the mega city that the saudi arabians want to build i think we need to approach these with understanding what the underlying impetus is to build these or what the underlying meaning is behind the vision so we're talking about upwards of two four trillion dollars if you're looking out all the way into fruition of this dream china's but the question is whether or not they will have the

wherewithal with the foreign reserves with the cash they have on hand with the debt they have in their markets right now with the next future global recession how that is handled it's great to dream it's wonderful to have a vision the question is will there are three point one trillion dollar reserve be enough to actually see this vision through and if not is this really just something that the chinese are putting out there in order to help solidify themselves on the economic world stage and build partnerships and joint ventures if you will with other sovereign nations to slowly chip away at the u.s. dominance. among other sovereigns in the world economy when it seems like so much to lose because let's say they're continuing with this plan buying up land signing papers doing the handshakes. through portugal central asia europe it is just really really actually quite astounding what if they do lose face can he

afford that. well i think that. he's going to be walking on the razor's edge because he's going to position himself and take a strong man position and that means that he's going to have to take ownership of what goes right and what goes wrong and he's proven by given state controlled companies more credit over the past few months which is the opposite of the deed leveraging which is the propaganda that the government has been trying to sell we will have to see if he's capable of holding things together or whether he pushes himself into being more of a dictator and we see china begin to backtrack in terms of the economic progress it's made we've never seen a non capitalist economy as such in modern history come out to present itself and become the dominant world's super economy ok just an anecdotal question

now you mention his successor is heading that red carpet and out in front of the cameras relatively young how long do you think it is before one of them will sort of rise in public stature and become the obvious successor well i think that the way that everything i've learned in studying the chinese culture and the chinese political system i think that you will that she will be very purposeful in having somebody who he aims to succeed him rise in public that's just how it's done you get you get more and more stature you get a better and better position you get a position that's closer and closer to the president until one day the president steps aside and you end up taking over the reins so i think that will be a deliberate but very public process process that we see here in the years that come out to twenty twenty two and clearly potentially out to twenty twenty seven at

this point. danielle de martino booth president of money strong and author of fed up an insider's take on why the federal reserve is bad for america thank you thank you very much time now for a quick break but stick around because when we return we'll look at how the belden road initiative will affect alliances such as the trans pacific partnership will be right back. here in the pacific on done with us will generally agree to what will transpire. thinks it's going to. it's the cradle of jazz. there is the america we have.

those do suggest. to you climatic testify only gators on the loose. are used by these two members of my close. street racing. each of the night. is a new orleans. the best place in the world. if and when it's completed the belt and road initiative will wind through countries hosting more than half of the global for other famous trade deals though such as that for us by two thousand and fifty that last year painting

a bright future for the trade initiative on the other worry president trump signed an order to withdraw from the t p p over what he claims were unfair rules and there's still a chance that he can hold the u.s. out of the north american free trade agreement for the same concerns so the puts the u.s. in a unique situation when it comes to global trade for a few reasons the one belt one road project currently includes sixty countries and is open to adding more compared to the twelve nations originally added in the t p p and while the t p p is simply a trade deal china's foreign institutional support behind its venture including a bank and investment fund but the most obvious difference is the new infrastructure couldn't airports pipelines roads and bridges to connect the nation's included coupled with other problems like aggression with north korea conflict in the south china sea it's unclear how the u.s. will approach one felt one road but officials have indicated. china likely won't be adding the u.s. to its list during

a congressional hearing in october defense secretary james mattis said and it globalized world there are many belts and many roads and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating one belt one road that said the one belt one road also goes through disputed territory and i think that in itself shows the vulnerability of trying to establish that sort of dictate the maddest was referring to there is a china pakistan economic corridor which india says passes through the disputed territory of kashmir so beyond the economic competition with one belt one road it seems there could be other road blocks to overcome before it becomes a real competitor. how does this if we crunch the way comparison here because they are so different project that's going to include a successful and obvious stay very broad of what about europe what effect could it have there while it's not as much of a threat to europe as it is to the u.s. for a few reasons even if the t.t. ip falls apart or the e.u.

doesn't establish it now right i mean as far as we know the u.s. is. trying to is a huge demoed. is a huge deal you know.