China’s flagship foreign policy effort could reshape the world’s digital, trade, and transport networks and political ties for decades to come.
Five years since it was announced, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has yet to materialize on the ground as promised. According to Chinese officials, the BRI includes six economic corridors that will carry goods, people, and data across the Eurasian supercontinent. But a statistical analysis of 173 infrastructure projects finds that Chinese investment is just as likely to go outside those corridors as within them.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative has expanded far beyond its original core of Eurasia and the Middle East, from New Zealand to the Arctic, Africa to Latin America and even outer space. While the BRI is not yet a challenge to the rules-based liberal order, it is a test of it.
In February, following a protracted dispute, Djibouti unilaterally terminated a container terminal contract with Dubai-based DP World. The strategically located country on the Horn of Africa may gift control of the terminal to Chinese companies, which inaugurated a free trade zone in the same area earlier this month. The terminal is located just miles from the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa and even closer to China’s only foreign military base. “If the Chinese took over that port, then the consequences could be significant,” the top U.S. military official in Africa said during a congressional hearing in March.
China’s latest “16+1” summit in Sofia Bulgaria perfectly captures its deceptive brand of multilateralism. Bringing together many countries, it gives the outward appearance of inclusivity and consensus-building, but beneath the surface, it is fundamentally different from the multilateral practices and institutions it claims to uphold. China has yet to offer deep multilateralism at scale.
This Friday China will gather 16 Central and Eastern European countries in Sofia, Bulgaria, for the annual China-Central and Eastern European “16+1” summit. As the gathering may help China build a bigger economic and political presence in Europe and exercise its power bilaterally under the cover of a multilateral veneer, it warrants more attention from Brussels and Washington.