Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The European Commission unveiled its "Global Gateway (GG)" initiative on December 1. According to the Q&A section on their official website, it aims "to develop sustainable and high quality digital, climate and energy and transport infrastructures and strengthen health, education and research systems across the world." The GG will also "ensure that global connections and networks develop in line with democratic values and high standards, ensuring a level playing field, while at the same time supporting sustainable development."

On the surface, the GG should be welcomed since everyone benefits whenever major countries responsibly invest in developing ones. It's about time that the EU finally starts paying significant attention to the Global South, especially since some of its members have such an atrocious colonial-era history there and have even continued to abuse those countries into the present day through neo-colonial schemes. Having said that, there are also very serious concerns that the GG might be weaponized for geopolitical ends, which mustn't happen otherwise this initiative will lose its luster.

Suspiciously, the European Commission's website doesn't provide a clear answer to this question: "Is Global Gateway a response to the Chinese Belt and Road initiative and how does it relate to others?" This suggests that some ulterior geopolitical motives might be at play, especially since part of their meandering answer announced that "Initiatives such as the Build Back Better World (B3W) and Global Gateway will mutually reinforce each other." Build Back Better World is widely regarded as the U.S.'s attempt to aggressively compete with the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

If the GG is going to have anything to do with the B3W, let alone "mutually reinforce" it, then this initiative is also doomed to fail. That's because the B3W doesn't actually have any objectively existing competitive merits when compared to BRI. It's simply a set of slogans about "democratic values," "high standards," "transparency," and "financial sustainability," curiously, just like the European Commission describes the GG on their cited website. On its own and in a level playing field, it cannot compete with BRI. This means that the GG is fated to fail if it's anything similar to the B3W like it seems to be.

What's so pernicious about the B3W is that it seems intended to serve as an artificial replacement for BRI in those developing countries whose governments might be aggressively pressured by the West to distance themselves from China's mutually beneficial global connectivity initiative. To explain, the U.S.-led West is known for engineering color revolutions, or weaponized protest movements that disguise their externally backed regime change goal behind faux anti-corruption, democracy and human rights slogans. These tactics can be instrumentalized against BRI's partners.

It's relevant to reference the U.S.'s upcoming "Summit for Democracy," which is a misleading name for an event if there ever was one. In this context, the pertinence lies in those countries that weren't invited to attend. Many of them are in Afro-Eurasia, which happens to be part of the world where BRI has been most active. Their exclusion suggests that the U.S. doesn't regard them as "democracies," which in turn hints that they might become targets of color revolution-driven regime change campaigns whose real anti-BRI motive might be disguised by the earlier identified slogans.

To put it all together, any government that might potentially be overthrown through these illegal means could see their newly installed pro-Western puppets replace BRI projects with those of B3W and GG. That's the only way in which those two "mutually reinforcing" initiatives could actually "compete" with China's. It's crucial to point out that there isn't even any genuine competition in this scenario, just unilateral attempts to change the so-called "rules of the game" through such subversive means, without which the B3W and GG don't stand any chance of clinching significant deals.

After all, there's no other reason why the European Commission couldn't directly state that the GG isn't a response to BRI like its own website asked. This also explains its intent to "mutually reinforce" the B3W that's already regarded as a geopolitical weapon against China's initiative. Furthermore, it also answers the question of why the GG relies on the same highly emotive and easily manipulatable slogans as the B3W. Hopefully, the GG will realize the inevitable pitfalls of becoming the B3W's European clone and will seriously consider becoming a responsible development partner for the Global South instead. 

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