China’s Belt and Road is commonly visualized as a train carrying commerce across Eurasia. But a train does not adequately capture BRI’s significance or scope. Instead, a Chinese flag is a better representation. Whether it is China’s intention or not, the increasing connectivity the BRI brings comes hand in hand with exposure to Chinese culture.
To better understand the opportunities and challenges posed along China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the members of The New Silk Road Project will travel 10,000 miles across China’s Economic Belt to explore the people, projects, countries, and landscapes involved. We expect to depart from London and Rotterdam, two western termini of the Belt and Road, in June 2018. Over 60 days, we will travel to Yiwu, a city in East China that houses the world’s largest wholesale market and aspires to send more of its goods along the BRI’s overland routes. We will focus on two key corridors: the New Eurasian Land Bridge and China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor, attempting to visit over two dozen ‘Silk Road’ hubs along this fast-evolving axis.