China's Belt and Road: Where to Now?

ABSTRACT

In a recent address, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a huge expansion of the BRI, sustained through dialogue, openness, and innovation among BRI participants.2 In place of confrontation, he envisaged cooperation, social and economic development, and bolstered intercultural exchanges.3 China's revitalized BRI would unshackle the transborder movement of capital, enhance infrastructure relationships, and enrich the productivity of BRI traffic globally.4 President Xi pronounced that wellfinanced and supported initiatives "along that path" would protect vital interests both domestically and globally.5 China's present dilemma is in ensuring that it expands its stature as the largest destination for foreign inbound investment (FDI) to offset the risk of losing access to foreign markets. Some developing states are avoiding the road because of fear of incurring debt loads.17 Others that are already on the road are limiting funding for roadwork to avoid increasing debts.18 Chinese banks are imposing higher interest rates on loans and providing shorter periods to repay them.19 The Group of Seven wealthiest Western states are constructing competitor roads and alternative sources of funding and terms of payment, highlighted by the EU's recently announced Global Gateway.20 American banks are competing strategically to counter the resourcing provided by the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank to fund BRI infrastructure development.21 Stern detractors depict China as constructing a controlled highway along which it restricts access, participation, and the right and manner of exit. In their portrayal, China's BRI operates as a directed highway along which it dictates travel according to laws of the road of its ordination and autocratic application.22 Far from eliciting cooperation from participating states and foreign investors, China's BRI plan, according to them, is to erode consent over the direction, length, and safety of the highway.23 At their most generous, critics envisage that China will reformulate Western liberal treaties of trade and investment into instruments of its self-empowerment that are formally attired in legal apparel.24 These criticisms compound already challenging economic and political roadblocks to BRI construction. The direction, pace, and scale of the BRI will be contingent on how China, in deliberation with its partner states, redresses functional and legal blockages on that road.32 China will be scrutinized on how well it can sustain its BRI as the global trailblazer that nurtures productivity along an infrastructure pathway that traverses target states with often distinct but also shifting needs.33 China will also be scrutinized on how well it can manage fluctuating costs and unexpected roadblocks along its BRI, resist fervent BRI competition from the West, and dissuade state partners from withdrawing.