The Belt and Road Initiative – the New Silk Road: a research agenda

ABSTRACT Despite the prosperity and long continuity in history, the ancient Silk Road was weakened in recent centuries. Only with the end of the Cold War, there come the chances for its revival. The launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 by the Chinese coincided with the development strategy change of China, but the Initiative has just still been an initiative open to be substantiated by future policies and changes in China and overseas. The early focus has been on infrastructure investments. On the basis of existing railways, China has developed with European and Central Asian cities an ever-intensifying network of scheduled freight trains to carry out and promote long-distance trade along the old Silk Road routes. Lately, the overland routes have developed intermodal services to revive the traditional linkages between overland Silk Road and maritime Silk Road. Also, a new transport connectivity facilitated by China-funded railway investments has evolved, for example, in Eastern Europe and East Africa and China investment agreements on the development of economic corridors in Pakistan and Myanmar. There have been and could be criticisms and skepticisms about the Belt and Road Initiative. The infrastructure facilities built under the Initiative would definitely enhance local and regional connectivity of the host countries, and when combined with attempts at local industrialization, facilitated by the new opportunities of trade and exchanges, and funded by China or otherwise, it would offer the best chance for lifting the local populations out of the trap of isolation, poverty, and marginalization.