Demystifying the Belt and Road Initiative: A Clarification of its Key Features, Objectives and Impacts

This report describes the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is a transcontinental infrastructure plan conceptualized in China and implemented in more than 100 partner countries, primarily emerging economies. The BRI primarily promotes the building of physical infrastructure that will connect the partner countries globally.

Despite its needs-based approach, the BRI has been widely criticized for creating undesirable effects, such as increasing partner countries' economic dependence on China through debt-trap lending. The authors of this report identify and explain what makes the BRI different from traditional development finance initiatives and provide a framework to assess the critiques. They also discuss the available evidence on the BRI's effects and describe the implications for policymakers who are trying to determine how to assess and leverage the BRI.

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Introduction

Chapter Two
The Defining Characteristics of the BRI

Chapter Three
Assessing the BRI and Its Externalities

Chapter Four
Empirical Evidence of the BRI’s Impacts and Externalities

Chapter Five
Implications and Recommendations for Policymakers

Appendix A
The Five Pillars of the BRI

Appendix B
Objectives of the Marshall Plan

The full ebook (both in English and in Chinese) can be downloaded from the following link: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR1338.html