China's Belt and Road

Abstract

When China unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, the trillion-dollar trade and infrastructure project was hailed as a 21st-century version of the Silk Road that would eventually link East Asia with Europe and Africa. To the capital-starved low-income nations that lined its route, the initiative represented much more — a Chinese version of the U.S. Marshall Plan, which helped rescue resource-starved Europe when it was on the brink of collapse after World War II.