Not All Roads Lead to Beijing

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the world’s most ambitious vision for connectivity, but it is hardly the only vision that matters. Arguably the BRI’s biggest global contribution has been to elevate the importance of connectivity. It has alarmed its competitors by using infrastructure as a tool for influence. It has disappointed its partners by over-promising and under-delivering. While China learns from this experience and recalibrates the BRI, it is giving momentum to competing visions for connectivity that will deliver results during 2021 and the years to come.