Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative is a revival of the centuries-old Silk Road, which has been in use for over two thousand years. China has designed BRI as a new strategic framework for its foreign policy and economic ambitions, concentrating directly on the neighboring countries along its southern and western borders. China aims to foster cooperation at the regional levels through BRI by leveraging the enormous financial and economic potentialities of China. The primary objective of China with respect to the BRI is to "divert Beijing's strategic attention and resources toward engagement with countries on China's western flank, including Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia, and beyond," while avoiding direct and high-intensity conflict with other major Asia-Pacific powers. BRI addresses China's long-standing post-Cold War Aussenpolitik anxieties, primarily, mitigating the potentially negative geopolitical implications of hegemony by the US and establishing a credible deterrence concerning global political order led by the US, as well as to present Beijing as a substitute leader in world’ economic affairs. With the execution of BRI to the extent that it fosters peace and harmony, a multi-polar world will emerge and that it is associated to nurture mutual relationships based on win-win cooperation and reciprocal benefits.