Report
23 Jun 2017

China’s Belt and Road: a Game Changer?

Officially announced by president Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has since become the centrepiece of China’s economic diplomacy. It is a commitment to ease bottlenecks to Eurasian trade by improving and building networks of connectivity across Central and Western Asia, where the BRI aims to act as a bond for the projects of regional cooperation […]

Officially announced by president Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has since become the centrepiece of China’s economic diplomacy.

It is a commitment to ease bottlenecks to Eurasian trade by improving and building networks of connectivity across Central and Western Asia, where the BRI aims to act as a bond for the projects of regional cooperation and integration already in progress in Southern Asia.

But it also reaches out to the Middle East as well as East and North Africa, a truly strategic area where the Belt joins the Road. Europe, the end-point of the New Silk Roads, both by land and by sea, is the ultimate geographic destination and political partner in the Belt and Road Initiative.

This report, edited by Alessia Amighini, provides an in-depth analysis of the BRI, its logic, rationale and implications for international economic and political relations.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION, Paolo Magri

1. Belt and Road: A Logic Behind the Myth, Yuan Li

2. A Comprehensive Strategy To Strengthen China’s Relations with Central Asia, Fabio Indeo

3. Improving Relations with Russia and Ukraine, Maria Lagutina

4. The MENA Region: Where the Belt Joins the Road, Filippo Fasulo, Valeria Talbot

5. New Belts and Roads: Redrawing EU-China Relations, Xavier Richet, Joël Ruet, Xieshu Wang

6. Towards a New Geography of Trade?, Alessia Amighini

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE EU, Alessia Amighini 

 
* The ISPI online papers are also published with the support of Fondazione Cariplo

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