March 28, 2024

China’s New Silk Road


Marco Polo’s caravan via Wikimedia Commons

China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative involves significant funding for infrastructure projects around the world, aiming to improve trade and more.


By Dr. Madhuri Karak
Anthropologist


China’s “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) initiative—yi dai yi lu in Mandarin Chinese—aims to connect seventy-one countries by land and sea. Highways and maritime routes will complement the “networks of connectivity” in trade, investment, finance, tourism, and even education between China and the world. OBOR is meant to be a form of diplomacy, development, and trade incentive all rolled into one. The initiative is constantly evolving in its scope; in fact, the Chinese government recently changed OBOR to “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) in English.

Since President Xi Jinping’s announcement of the project in 2013, OBOR/BRI has become an umbrella phrase used to describe Chinese engagement abroad. With a stipulated investment of $1 trillion, covering more than 50% of the world’s population and a quarter of the global GDP, the initiative is less a simple policy initiative than a grand strategy. BRI is China’s Marshall Plan, part stimulus for a slowing economy at home and part marketing drive for Chinese investment around the world.

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