Vol. 4 No. 2 (2024): Studia Humanitatis Journal
Articles: miscellaneous

Yidai yilu: keys on the Belt and Road Initiative

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  • Sara Álvarez Quintáns
Sara Álvarez Quintáns Instituto Universitario General Gutiérrez Mellado-UNED
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33732/shj.v4i2.118

Published 2024-07-31

Keywords

  • People’s Republic of China,
  • Geopolitics,
  • Silk roads,
  • International relations,
  • Economic cooperation

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Abstract

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched in 2013 as a project aspiring to promote connectivity among continents through land and sea. A decade after its official announcement, the BRI has modified its design, its scope, its implementation mechanisms, and even the opinions garnered by the international community. The BRI was anything but a humble project and, as such, it gained traction in countries all around the world thanks to numerous bilateral cooperation agreements with China.

However, the Belt and Road Initiative has gained critics as well as champions—there even have been other projects that aim to be a counterpart for it. It has been heavily questioned as a tool to exert geopolitical control in the hands of Beijing’s government, but its primordial goal stands. Understanding the true nature of such a great initiative as this is a key task in order to be able to analyse its perks, advantages, inconveniences, and likely evolution.

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