Casualties of arrogance: China has blown its historic opportunity

Chennai: Until recently, China was unmistakably trying to be a hegemon in the image of the United States, increasingly complementing its growing hard power with soft power. But China seems to have missed its opportunity to build a serious rival to, or even supplant, the existing world economic order fashioned by the US following World War II.  All the elements of success seemed to be falling into place for China . It launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a transnational infrastructure investment program intended to define a vision…