# Belt and Road Initiative Canonical: https://web4.xpay.bi/en/wiki/wp-en-46258109/ Language: en Published: 2026-10-25T17:52:51.848Z Updated: 2026-10-25T17:52:51.848Z The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or B&R), also known as One Belt One Road (Chinese: 一带一路; pinyin: Yīdài Yīlù) and sometimes called the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure and economic development strategy pursued by the government of China since 2013. It includes projects in more than 150 countries spanning ports, railways, highways, power stations, aviation, and telecommunication ## Key facts ## Overview The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or B&R), also known as One Belt One Road (Chinese: 一带一路; pinyin: Yīdài Yīlù) and sometimes called the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure and economic development strategy pursued by the government of China since 2013. It includes projects in more than 150 countries spanning ports, railways, highways, power stations, aviation, and telecommunications. Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced the initiative during visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013. It consists of six overland economic corridors, known collectively as the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the sea-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Flagship projects include the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, the Boten–Vientiane railway, the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail line, and the ports of Piraeus, Hambantota, and Gwadar. Supporters describe the BRI as a way to close infrastructure gaps and boost trade and growth in developing economies. Critics have raised concerns about its environmental impact, governance and labor standards, debt sustainability, and the dual-use potential of some infrastructure. Accusations that China uses the BRI for "debt-trap diplomacy" are widely disputed by researchers. ## History China's overseas investment dates to the 1950s, with projects in North Korea, Vietnam, and several African countries. Africa, where China backed independence movements, received 58% of Chinese economic aid between 1956 and 1969. These investments stayed small because of the Mao-era emphasis on self-reliance. After Deng Xiaoping launched reform and opening up in December 1978, China began moving toward a market economy. Under Jiang Zemin, the Go Out policy encouraged Chinese construction firms to work abroad. The BRI expanded that policy and also built on Jiang's China Western Development program. Xi Jinping first announced the concept as the "Silk Road Economic Belt" in a speech at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, on 7 September 2013. The following month, in a speech in Indonesia, he proposed a "21st-Century Maritime Silk Road" to deepen cooperation with Southeast Asia and beyond. ## Initiative name The official name for the initiative is the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Development Strategy (丝绸之路经济带和21世纪海上丝绸之路发展战略), which was initially abbreviated as the One Belt One Road (Chinese: 一带一路) or the OBOR strategy. The English translation has been changed to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since 2016, when the Chinese government considered the emphasis on the words "one" and "strategy" were prone to misinterpretation and suspicion, so they opted for the more inclusive term "initiative" in its translation. However, "One Belt One Road" is still the reference term in Chinese-language media. ## Objectives The BRI is a large-scale development strategy intended to expand infrastructure and trade connectivity across many countries. For China, it opens new markets for Chinese firms, moves excess industrial capacity overseas, secures access to resources, and strengthens ties with partner countries. Chinese loans usually fund projects built by Chinese companies, so the initiative generates its own export demand. Its overland routes are also meant to help China's less developed western regions catch up with the east. For developing countries, the BRI offers infrastructure, finance, and technical assistance that can ease their economic disadvantages relative to Western countries, with potential gains in employment and poverty reduction. The initiative has been compared to the post-war Marshall Plan. Simon Curtis and Ian Klaus describe it as the largest infrastructure investment by a great power since then. China deliberately keeps the initiative's framing flexible so it can adapt to new priorities. For example, it added a "Health Silk Road" during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many analysts also see the BRI as a way to extend Chinese political influence, and some frame it through Halford Mackinder's heartland theory. Official Chinese media play down these strategic dimensions. Domestically, the initiative also guides the policies of Chinese provinces and ministries. Economist Keyu Jin argues that, besides advancing China's strategic interests, it reflects the CCP's vision of a "community of shared future". A 2025 study of China in the Middle East describes the BRI as a soft-power instrument that works through digital, cultural, and educational projects. Security concerns are part of the picture as well. The BRI has been linked to China's efforts to reduce its exposure to choke points such as the Strait of Malacca (the "Malacca dilemma") and to blunt the U.S. island chain strategy. A 2023 AidData study found that some overseas ports with heavy BRI investment raise dual-use concerns and could suit future Chinese naval bases. David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman argue that China seeks to strengthen its strategic position and reduce U.S. military influence. In their view, however, BRI activity is unlikely to lead to American-style overseas bases, and dual-use ports may be a way of avoiding the need for purely military facilities. Developing Xinjiang is also a stated goal. The region borders eight countries and lies on the main overland routes to Central Asia. Some analysts argue that the Chinese government regards radical Islamic influences from BRI partner states as threats to the initiative. They link these concerns to the government's policies in the region. ## Leadership A leading group was formed sometime in late 2014, and its leadership line-up publicized on 1 February 2015. This steering committee reports directly into the State Council of China and is composed of several political heavyweights, evidence of the importance of the program to the government. Then Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli, who was also a member of the 7-man CCP Politburo Standing Committee, was named leader of the group, and Wang Huning, Wang Yang, Yang Jing, and Yang Jiechi named deputy leaders. On 28 March 2015, the Chinese government published Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, which outlined the principles, framework, key areas of cooperation and cooperation mechanisms of the initiative. The BRI is considered a central element within China's foreign policy, and was incorporated into the CCP's constitution in 2017 during its 19th Congress. The BRI represents a set of policies for Chinese engagement with the global South, including diversifying resource and energy supplies, building loan-funded infrastructure using Chinese companies, creating new markets for Chinese companies, and engaging global South countries simultaneously at bilateral and regional levels. With regard to China and the African countries, the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is a significant multilateral cooperation mechanism for facilitating BRI projects. The China–Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) serves a similar coordinating role with regard to BRI projects in the Arab states. ## Membership Countries join the BRI by signing a memorandum of understanding with China, and the Chinese government lists participants on its Belt and Road Portal. As of May 2025, Fudan University's Green Finance & Development Center counted between 146 and 150 member states. A few countries have withdrawn, formally or de facto. Lithuania in 2021, and Estonia and Latvia in 2022, left the 17+1 cooperation format and let their BRI agreements lapse. The Philippines dropped its BRI projects in November 2023 amid rising tensions with China. Italy, the only G7 member to have joined, declined to renew its MoU, which expired in March 2024. Panama withdrew in February 2025. ## Financing Most BRI financing takes the form of loans. China is the world's largest bilateral lender, and its loans are often secured with collateral such as receivables in a bank account. The policy banks, the China Development Bank and the Export–Import Bank of China, play the central role in funding BRI projects. State-owned commercial banks also lend heavily. The Bank of China lent more than US$185 billion for BRI projects between 2015 and 2020, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had lent more than US$100 billion by April 2019. State-owned enterprises both finance and build projects. In 2024 they regained a dominant share of BRI investment, led by Sinopec, PowerChina, and China National Chemical Engineering. The multilateral Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), first proposed in October 2013, was explicitly linked to the BRI at its founding. It later broadened its lending to countries outside the initiative. ## Investment funds China established the Silk Road Fund in December 2014 with capital of US$40 billion and RMB 100 billion. It invests in infrastructure, resources, energy, and industrial and financial cooperation, and its first project was the Karot Hydropower Project in Pakistan. The sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation (CIC) invests in BRI projects and related funds, including the Silk Road Fund, and helps Chinese companies make foreign acquisitions. Its domestic subsidiary Central Huijin supports the state banks that finance many projects. China has also set up joint funds with partner countries, such as one established with Mubadala in the United Arab Emirates. ## Debt sustainability debate China signed on to the G20 Operational Guidelines for Sustainable Financing in 2017 and to the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment in 2019. The Center for Global Development described China's subsequent debt sustainability framework as "virtually identical" to that of the World Bank and IMF. Jeremy Garlick argues that for many poor countries China is the best available source of development finance. He notes that Western investors and the World Bank have been reluctant to lend to states such as Pakistan, Cambodia, Tajikistan, and Montenegro, and that BRI lending is no worse for borrowers' debt than lending by the IMF or the Paris Club. US officials have characterized BRI lending as debt-trap diplomacy. In August 2023 President Joe Biden called the initiative "basically a debt and noose agreement". Many researchers, however, have found no evidence that China deliberately pursues such a strategy. Deborah Bräutigam and Meg Rithmire note that Chinese banks have restructured loans but have never seized an asset from a borrowing country, and Yan Hairong and Barry Sautman reach the same conclusion. Kerry Brown observes that Sri Lanka's Hambantota International Port, often cited as a debt-trap case, has instead drawn China into further spending, risk, and complex local politics. Other assessments are more critical. A 2025 Lowy Institute study found that 54 developing countries now owe more in debt repayments to China than to Paris Club countries. It concluded that Chinese lending has been a driver of debt sustainability problems in many of them. An analysis of BRI loans from 2007 to 2022 found that they made bond market borrowing more expensive for debtor countries. ## Infrastructure networks The BRI was first set out as a set of overland economic corridors linked by road, rail, energy, and digital infrastructure, together with a Maritime Silk Road built around ports. The 2015 Vision and Actions document mapped these corridors, and also called for "soft" infrastructure such as trade agreements and common commercial rules. In practice, the early BRI was dominated by large, loan-financed megaprojects. According to China Global Investment Tracker data, projects costing more than US$1 billion made up 18% of BRI projects but 56% of BRI investment between 2005 and 2022. Since about 2021, Beijing has promoted a "small and beautiful" model, with new projects intended to be smaller, greener, and less financially risky. Investment has shifted toward technology, energy, and health care. Private firms and provincial governments have taken on larger financing roles. At the third Belt and Road Forum in October 2023, Xi pledged to pursue both "signature projects" and "small yet smart" livelihood programs, including 1,000 small-scale assistance projects. ## Overland corridors The main land corridors are: The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the most developed corridor. It is a US$62 billion program of transport and energy projects in Pakistan. It became partly operational in November 2016, when Chinese cargo was first shipped overland to Gwadar Port, and it gives China a trade route that bypasses the Strait of Malacca. The New Eurasian Land Bridge, which runs from western China through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Poland to Germany. Astana is a major hub for the corridor. At the Khorgos dry port on the China–Kazakhstan border, rail cargo transfers from Chinese standard gauge to the wider gauge used in the former Soviet Union. The China–Mongolia–Russia Economic Corridor, which runs from northern China to the Russian Far East. The China–Central Asia–West Asia Corridor, which runs from western China to Turkey. The China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridor, which runs from southern China to Singapore. A sixth corridor, the Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Economic Corridor, was described in 2015 as closely related to the BRI. It was dropped from the project list in 2019 because India refused to participate. Other links have since been proposed, such as the Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network with Nepal. Rail freight is central to the overland routes. As of 2024, services branded as China Railway Express linked about 60 Chinese cities with about 50 European cities. Their use surged after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted air and sea freight, and by 2022 China had built cross-border highways to almost every neighboring region. ## Maritime Silk Road Xi proposed the Maritime Silk Road in an October 2013 speech to the Indonesian parliament. It runs from the Chinese coast through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean to East Africa, then through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean. Estimates in 2019 found that most BRI-related trade still moved by sea, mainly because container shipping costs less than overland rail. The port of Piraeus in Greece is the most successful BRI port project as of 2024, and it has helped China strengthen ties with Greece. In Kenya, China has built rail and road links from the port of Mombasa inland to Nairobi. ## Sources - Belt and Road Initiative · Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=46258109 Source: Wikipedia contributors — https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=46258109&oldid=1381787272 Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation notice: Reformatted for XPay; the source may be abridged, restructured or translated. Consult the cited revision for the original.