ICS Occasional Papers

The extensive and wide-ranging presence of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a phenomenon which is here to stay. The proposal announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013 at Nazarbayev University envisioned China's reaching across the world to strengthen communication, improve road connectivity, enhance trade and investment facilitation and strengthen people to people exchanges. It is clear that the BRI has become the most important element of the ‘Chinese Dream’ in assuming centre-stage in a ‘Community of Shared Destiny’ of a globalised world in the new century, the test of its civilisational strength and resilience. This paper takes stock of the contemporary geopolitical, economic and social aspects of the BRI.