China’s Belt and Road Initiative is commonly seen as a programme to fund and build infrastructure in some 78 countries around the globe. It is also Beijing’s bid to reshape the world by offering an alternative developmental vision to the US-led world order.
In the Chinese context, it is the linchpin of President Xi Jinping’s grand design to create a “community with a shared future for mankind”. As such, the Belt and Road (BRI) is officially intended to showcase an open, inclusive form of development which benefits all countries that participate.
To criticise BRI, therefore, is to censure a rising China’s proposition to the world. Yet there is growing evidence that the infrastructure projects are falling short of Beijing’s ideals and stirring controversy in the countries they were intended to assist.