trade and economic prosperity

• • The Belt and Road Initiative is a massive infrastructure project that aims to stretch around the globe. 
  • It consists of a vast collection of development and investment initiatives to ‘significantly [broaden] China’s economic and political influence’. (Council of Foreign Relations)
• AIMS of BRI

  ‘In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we should focus on the fundamental issue of development, release the growth of various countries and achieve economic integration and interconnected development and deliver benefits to all’ - Xi Jingping (Beijing Forum, 2017)

  • Strengthen economic and security interests while bolstering overseas development. 
  • Reconfigure relationships, reroute economic activity, and shift power within and between states. 
• China Power Statistics, Oct 2023

  • 5.1 billion combined population of all countries involved
  • $41 trillion combined GDP of all countries involved. 
  • $2.8 trillion in trade between China and member countries in 2021
• • It is estimated that developing countries of Asia will collectively require $26 trillion in infrastructure investment to sustain growth (Asian Development Bank). 
  • Many areas targeted are struggling economically. 

  For example, Myanmar and Pakistan ranked 149th and 161st out of 191 countries in terms of the (UN) Human Development Index in 2021.
• • 90% of all countries classified as ‘low income’ or ‘lower middle income’ are member countries (World Bank).
  • China’s loans to these counties have tripled in the past decade, reaching $170 bn by the end of 2020.
• This grants China the ability to seek geopolitical leverage over BRI countries who will accumulate debt to China. They retain the right to demand repayment at any time, giving Beijing the ability to use funding as a tool to enforce Chinese hot button issues such as Taiwan or the treatment of Uyghurs.
• Debt Trapping - Sri Lanka

  • Billion dollar port project in Hambantota with Chinese Investment, though was left saddled with debts. 

  2017: Sri Lanka agreed to give state-owned China merchants a 70% stake in the port, as well as a 99 year lease in return for Chinese investment.
• CPEC

  • 3,000 kilometre corridor, intended to connect the land-based economic belt with the maritime road. 

  An important loop in the larger chain of the Belt and Road Initiative. - Chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission.


  This would reduce the time and cost of transporting goods and energy such as natural gas to China by circumventing the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea.
• Unintended Consequences of CPEC

  • Formation of separatist groups in Baloch who are against the initiatives unfair exploitation of resources in their mineral rich region. 
  • 26th of April, 2022: a suicide attack outside Karachi University killed three Chinese taff and their Pakistani driver.