China’s Belt and Road Initiative: An Overview of Developments

Abstract

China’s ambitious initiative to build infrastructure in dozens of countries along land and sea trade routes stretching from China to Africa and Europe is set to grow bigger than first envisaged in 2013. Added to the original overland Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is the Polar Silk Road, now written into China’s Arctic Policy that was published in January 2018. The China-centric initiative also got itself written into the Chinese Communist Party’s constitution in October 2017, leading many outside China to view it as more than an economic plan to build infrastructure to facilitate trade and boost development in developing countries. Foreign observers see it also as a scheme to expand China’s influence overseas by binding other nations more closely to it economically. That there is demand for the infrastructure that the Chinese want to build is unquestionable — in Asia alone, to keep the economies humming, there is a need to invest US$1.7 trillion annually in infrastructure up till 2030. However, the security and financial risks of this venture are daunting to investors as the routes run through some of the riskiest countries in the world. The situation is not helped by suspicion over China’s intentions and concerns about the lack of transparency and whether tender processes meet international standards. China needs to listen to and allay the concerns of governments, corporations and international organizations to gain their support and participation in this project that is so massive it cannot pull off alone.