Ten years of the Belt and Road Initiative: What’s changed?
The Tangram | No 03.2025
This is the third Tangram from Observing China, where the leading China experts give a diverse range of succinct responses to key questions on the development of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
This month marks ten years since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first unveiled in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Our recent ‘Investigator’ by Charles Parton looked at how the BRI set the precedent for other initiatives by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which further aim to perpetuate the PRC’s influence abroad as well as a Chinese model of global governance.
But how has the BRI itself evolved since its inception ten years ago, and how have public perceptions of it changed? Has the plan been successful, and is it really a form of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’, the well-known term first coined by Indian academic Brahma Chellaney which points to an aim of ensnaring poorer countries in political acquiescence?
We asked four experts to evaluate.
Member of the Advisory Council of the China Observatory, Council on Geostrategy
The formal announcement of the BRI, Xi’s signature foreign policy, by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) a decade ago gushed with political platitudes and party-inspired perspectives. The heyday of large-scale infrastructure financing is over. There is a new focus on smaller projects and financing, and collaboration in technology, institution-building, digitisation, green energy and public health. Yet, has Beijing’s $1 trillion (£770 billion) of BRI financial commitments paid off?
For the world’s biggest trade nation, it has. Trade between the PRC and nations signed up to the BRI has tripled to over $2 trillion (£1.5 trillion) since 2014, with many nations counting the PRC as their largest trade partner, and the BRI area accounting for approximately 45% of PRC trade worldwide.
The PRC’s $1 trillion (£770 billion) in infrastructure financing and construction projects has had mixed results. Recipient countries have been able to acquire – without human rights conditions and by parroting Beijing’s Taiwan narrative – development infrastructure and access to Chinese trade, investment and know-how. The PRC has acquired raw materials, energy, security over sea routes and chokepoints, market access for its goods and other advantages which serve its financial, military, political and security agendas.
Yet, commonly cited criticisms of the BRI include mothballed and cancelled projects, cost overruns, inefficient Chinese management and, above all, financial distress – sometimes very serious – arising from debt. Approximately two dozen BRI countries are deeply affected, and indeed most of Beijing’s annual lending nowadays takes the form of rescue loans.
The ‘debt diplomacy’ criticism of the PRC, though it seems fanciful, substitutes conspiracy for incompetence and opacity, which also feature in its domestic infrastructure financing model: the model on which the BRI is based. The former links local governments, state banks and state enterprises in a cycle of rising overcapacity and debt, but in the BRI, there is simply a fourth sovereign actor.
Ultimately, this is a weak governance problem, which has given some BRI nations second thoughts about their relations with the PRC. Others are now also pushing back at the PRC’s exporting of overcapacity and dumping of goods. Despite this, the BRI is Chinese foreign policy, not a cost-benefit problem, and Beijing will carry on regardless to try to bring others into its orbit.
Research Leader, China and Economic Security, RAND Europe
The emergence of other strategies such as the Global Development Strategy, the PRC’s economic performance, and the series of bad debts and subsequent difficult restructuring have shed doubts over the resilience of the BRI and whether perhaps the PRC has outgrown it. But the BRI is not going anywhere.
The BRI is – among other things – a way to frame the PRC’s foreign policy, and its content can change with Beijing’s evolving priorities. Through the years, the BRI has provided narrative support to the PRC’s bilateral relations with countries all over the world and strengthened Beijing’s influence globally. Many of the means which characterised it, such as investments and infrastructures, are still operational.
Whether we want to label them as BRI or not, recent developments include: Georgia awarding a Black Sea deepwater port project to the PRC’s state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), one of the BRI’s main players, and a new railway project in Vietnam – an emerging key player in global supply chains. The railway itself will pass through key technology manufacturing hubs in Vietnam.
Increasing connectivity with, and reliance on, the PRC is one of the drivers of Beijing’s foreign policy and thus of the BRI. This in turn increases the levers of influence at the PRC’s disposal. The BRI and its flexible nature have offered Beijing a way to shape global relationships through an economic prism, and that remains true today.
Assistant Professor at the University of West Bohemia
Beijing claims the BRI has entered a phase of ‘high-quality cooperation’, shifting from indiscriminate investment towards more strategic, sustainable and commercially viable projects. The latest BRI forum underscored the PRC’s deepening economic integration, with trade between the PRC and nations signed up to the BRI surpassing 50% of the PRC’s total trade volume. Expanding multilateral engagements – such as agreements with Brazil and the African Union, and regional investment forums like the China-GCC Industrial and Investment Cooperation Forum – reflect an institutionalisation of Beijing’s economic diplomacy.
Proponents argue that the initiative has matured, aligning with broader trends in globalisation by leveraging the PRC’s industrial capacity, digital trade expertise and financial influence. Infrastructure projects, once emblematic of overinvestment and waste, are now complemented by smaller, more targeted initiatives – branded as ‘small but beautiful’ – aimed at local development and welfare.
A more critical assessment, however, suggests that the BRI has evolved into a pragmatic geopolitical instrument rather than a benign economic initiative. The shift towards environmental sustainability, financial discipline and private sector participation reflects not only a recalibration of Beijing’s strategy, but also a necessary response to mounting financial and reputational costs.
The PRC’s approach – moving from high-risk, sovereign-backed loans to more selective and commercially viable investments – acknowledges past miscalculations. Yet, concerns persist. Firstly, debt sustainability remains a major issue, with Beijing accused of leveraging financial distress to secure strategic assets and political influence in recipient states. Secondly, governance concerns plague many projects, as Beijing frequently partners with regimes which have weak institutional capacity, raising questions about transparency, local agency and long-term viability. Thirdly, despite its rhetoric on sustainability, Beijing’s environmental commitments under the BRI remain patchy and often subordinate to commercial interests.
While critics in Washington and Brussels have sought to counter the PRC’s influence with initiatives such as the European Union’s (EU) Global Gateway and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (a US-led Group of Seven (G7) initiative), these efforts remain underfunded, fragmented and lacking the PRC’s state-backed financing model. Unlike the BRI, which integrates policy coordination, funding mechanisms and project execution, such alternatives struggle with bureaucratic inefficiencies and inconsistent political commitment.
Policy Advisor, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Beijing has no shortage of clunkily named policy frameworks, but none have cemented themselves in the minds of policy makers abroad quite like the BRI.
But for an initiative which has, by some estimates, funnelled over $1 trillion (£770 billion) into projects worldwide, detail remains conspicuously scarce. More than a decade since its conception, there is still no formal list of ‘BRI countries’, official spending tallies, or even a clear definition of what constitutes a BRI project.
This is because the initiative functions more as a branding tool than a rigid strategic master plan. The BRI label is applied across a vast spectrum of Chinese actors – public and private, national and provincial.
At times, this branding has created headaches for Beijing, with environmentally harmful projects and accusations of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ – although these are largely debunked – offering little diplomatic upside. Yet, this same flexibility is what gives the BRI its greatest competitive advantage: the ability to evolve with the times.
In recent years, the leadership in Beijing has shifted its messaging to an evolved BRI which focuses on smaller, sustainable projects under slogans such as ‘small is beautiful’ and ‘lean, clean and green’. These minimise reputational risk and leverage the country’s dominance in green technology – and help to secure the critical minerals essential for maintaining that dominance.
For the most part, Chinese actors are following this guidance. Spending after the Covid-19 pandemic has rebounded but remains well below its 2014-2016 peak, with a shift away from large-scale infrastructure projects. Private companies are playing an increasingly central role, and, in 2023, investments outpaced state-backed loans for the first time.
And, unlike in 2015, this ‘BRI 2.0’ now operates alongside a suite of other global initiatives, all aimed at advancing Beijing’s vision of global governance. As the international order faces new pressures, Beijing hopes that this more sophisticated toolkit will position it to reshape global norms on its own terms.
Grace Theodoulou – Policy Fellow, China Observatory
Email: grace@geostrategy.org.uk
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