Japan will undermine China's heavily- hyped Silk Road Economic Belt, also called the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative, with an initiative of its own called the "Japan Infrastructure Initiative" (JII).

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Formally launched Dec. 1 in Tokyo, the Japan Infrastructure Initiative plans to immediately invest $878 million into Japanese-directed infrastructure projects such as railways and power plants in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

JII is a joint venture involving some of Japan's largest firms intended as a vehicle for international infrastructure building programs taken on by Japanese companies.

Members of the joint venture are Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance, which owns 47.55%; Hitachi Capital (47.55%) and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (4.9%).

Some analysts, however, see JII as part of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's broader push to expand Japan's financial and economic clout worldwide to overmatch China.

With the assistance of big business in Japan, Abe will be able to marshal resources exceeding that of China's. Abe's push for a renaissance of Japanese influence under the banner of an effort named "Partnership for Quality Infrastructure" is being backed by a willingness to invest up to $200 billion in Asian and African infrastructure over the next five years.

This amount available to extend Japanese influence is massive when compared to government-led financial institutions such as China's new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that only opened for business on Jan. 16, 2016, or the much older World Bank that began in 1944 and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that started in 1966.

The $200 billion is twice the capitalization ($100 billion) of AIIB; about equal to that of the World Bank and larger than the ADB's.

Japan and the United States have both refused to join the Chinese-dominated AIIB, which now has 57 member states, including U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

To support his Partnership for Quality Infrastructure, Abe has been busy with visits to Asia and Central Asia over the past two years. His efforts have led to a $8.76 billion natural gas purification plant and $4.38 billion chemical plant in Turkmenistan and a fertilizer plant in Uzbekistan.

He's also helped close a deal with India to help build the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor; a high-speed rail line between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and two more metro systems in India.

Japan has kept claiming its infrastructure investments are superior to those of China, and other nations, as well. Japan and China are currently engaged in a high-stakes game of one upmanship worldwide.

It also appears a major aim of Japan's Partnership for Quality Infrastructure is to dilute the influence of China's Silk Road Economic Belt that appears more of a series of fits and starts not following any coherent plan.

In Sri Lanka, Japan is pushing hard to build a port and industrial zone at Trincomalee to counterbalance a port costing $1.4 billion China built in the underdeveloped port town of Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka.

TagsJapan Infrastructure Initiative, Silk Road Economic Belt, Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Partnership for Quality Infrastructure