Ten years and $1 trillion later, has China's Belt and Road Initiative reached a
2023 will mark the tenth anniversary of China's flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the billion-dollar push to build a network of infrastructure projects across emerging-market countries to conne
A solar plant in Uyayna, north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 29, 2018. Saudi Arabia received the most energy engagement from BRI in 2022 with a total of $5.4 billion investment from BRI, including the $210 million project with Jinko Solar. One of China"s long-term foreign-policy objectives is breaking up the dollar-denominated oil trade so that oil is bought and sold in other currenci
Image by Fayez Nureldine / AFP
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Passengers look through a train window at Kunming South Railway Station on April 13, 2023, in Kunming, Yunnan Province of China. The $6 billion China-Laos Railway took five years to construct. Most of China"s high-speed rail projects in 2022 are in East Asia, including the rail projects connecting China through Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore (Kunming-Singapore rail). In January, the P
Image by VCG via Getty Images
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BRI Engagements with Sub-Saharan Africa and West Asia have dropped to the lowest levels. Complicating matters is anger from several countries over the quality of their BRI projects. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on several BRI projects from Ecuador to Zambia that have experienced severe construction flaws. At Ecuador"s $2.7 billion Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project, tho
Image by Cristina Vega /AFP
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Kenya"s President Uhuru Kenyatta flags off the train linking Nairobi and Naivasha at the Nairobi Terminus operating the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation and financed by the Chinese government in the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, October 16, 2019. Many African governments are also accused of undertaking monstrous white elephant BRI proje
Image by Thomas Mukoya / Reuters
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A file photo of Kyrgyz boys swimming in an irrigation ditch in the village of Aravan outside Osh, Kyrgyzstan. China has been supporting numerous important social projects in Kyrgyzstan, including the reconstruction of its irrigation system, a plant for producing household appliances in Osh, the construction of a cement plant in Jalal Abad Oblast and the modernisation of its high-voltage p
