China’s Belt and Road: Progress on ‘Open, green and clean?’

As Beijing struggles to recalibrate its signature initiative, COVID-19 creates new risks and potential opportunities.

A year ago, Chinese leaders committed themselves to cleaning up their act in pursuit of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—Beijing’s plan to connect China to the world largely through infrastructure projects. The BRI had become synonymous with environmental degradation, corruption, and lack of transparency, and China’s top officials pledged new approaches. The Belt and Road Initiative, they said, would become “open, green, and clean” as it worked with partner countries to build public works, deepen trade linkages, and advance financial and development policy connections around the world.

China now faces a range of new challenges to the BRI as the COVID-19 pandemic first took a toll on the Chinese economy and now has brought the global economy to a crushing standstill.

In response, the Chinese government has introduced further initiatives to shore up the BRI and address the pandemic, while continuing to pay lip service to its earlier vows of reform. For example, in March, the China Development Bank and China’s Ministry of Commerce jointly issued a circular offering subsidized loans and other financial benefits and incentives for so-called “high quality” BRI projects affected by COVID-19. They also launched the Health Silk Road as a complement to infrastructure projects, mobilizing a full range of Chinese government and commercial entities to shower BRI host countries with medical assistance.

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