The following is an excerpt from Vice President Daniel Russel and Associate Director Blake Berger's op-ed originally published in Nikkei Asia.

Beijing has characterized the Belt and Road (BRI) Initiative as a mutually beneficial exchange. But as the Asia Society Policy Institute documented in a 2019 report, many Chinese developers have failed to conduct pre-project environmental and social impact assessments to identify potential downstream risks to local communities.

In project after project, communication between Chinese companies and affected people was insufficient or nonexistent, leading to local backlash and even project failures.

Since the BRI's inception, there has been no shortage of warnings for participating countries about Chinese debt trap diplomacy and the risks of approving too-good-to-be-true projects. But the developing world's hunger for infrastructure is so great that to "just say no" is not an option.

Read the full op-ed in Nikkei Asia.