What is China trying to accomplish with its belt and road?

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (一带一路) is a strategy initiated by the People’s Republic of China that seeks to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks with the aim of improving regional integration, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth.

Is BRI a debt trap?

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been plunging nations into debt—while estimates of just how deep it is existed, inadequate scrutiny of Beijing’s designs had given it plausible deniability. A study by development-research lab AidData has now uncovered the depth of the problem.

Why is China’s belt and Road Initiative so controversial?

The Chinese Government is keen to use the initiative to achieve important economic policy objectives, but some Chinese financiers and policymakers are cautious about funding risky Belt and Road projects outside of China, fearing poor return on their investments.

What is wrong with the “Silk Road economic belt” (BRI)?

First, resource investment between the “Silk Road Economic Belt” (the “Belt”) and the “Maritime Silk Road” (the “Road”) is too unbalanced. In other words, the Maritime Silk Road has monopolized too many policies and material resources. Second, the implementation of the BRI overemphasizes “infrastructure connectivity.”

What did the Silk Road bring to China?

Valuable Chinese silk, spices, jade, and other goods moved west while China received gold and other precious metals, ivory, and glass products. Use of the route peaked during the first millennium, under the leadership of first the Roman and then Byzantine Empires, and the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) in China.

Is the BRI a faultline in China-US competition?

The depth of the animosity over the deal shows the extent to which the BRI has become a faultline in the China-US competition. And Australia, economically interdependent with China but a committed ally of the US, finds itself caught in the middle. What is the BRI and what does China want?