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The Belt & Road Initiative’s Odyssey
from a Vision to an Organization
By Andreea Brînză

What BRI Has Achieved So Far
Six years, hundreds of projects and plenty of labels. This is how
the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has impacted the world. Started in2013, as a Chinese project aiming to win over the international
community, the BRI has become mostly a catchphrase andsometimes a boogeyman for big powers, such as the United Statesor the European Union.
At the beginning, the BRI was a slogan, but it started to be seen as
an infrastructure project and with this label a Pandora’s Box ofnicknames opened. From monikers like the New Silk Road, or a new
Marshall Plan, to an economic corridor, a debt trap or a branding
strategy, all of them have been used to describe the BRI over thepast six years. But the BRI is more than that, or at least it should be.
If, in the past, I argued elsewhere that the BRI is more like abranding strategy than an infrastructure project, because it gathers
under its umbrella all types of sectors, from infrastructure, to financeand business, to social and cultural contacts, today the BRI has
become an empty word, with no definition. Without having a clear
definition, the BRI has been caught between two perspectives: theChinese one and the Western one.
If Chinese academia perceives the BRI mainly as an economic
corridor and sometimes as a tool for global governance, focusing on
its holistic aspects, Western observers see it through the lens of an
infrastructure project and a debt trap. It can be some of these, all ofthese, or none of these, but what is clear is that the BRI is not yet anorganization. But things may change in the future.
At its inception, the BRI was more of a vision than a real foreign
policy strategy. But being so well received in 2013, it gave the BRI
the momentum to enhance its image and to pursue its initial goals,
to develop fields like “policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity,unimpeded trade, financial integration, people-to-people ties”, inorder to facilitate China’s integration in the international economy. In
these six years, the BRI completed more than 100 projects,
especially in infrastructure (transport, energy, mining, ITcommunications), but also in Special Economic Zones (SEZs),
industrial parks, tourism, urban development and people-to-people
exchanges. After all these years, Chinese President Xi Jinping
expressed, during the second BRI Forum in April 2019, the need togive a new impulse to the BRI, engaging it in becoming moretransparent, green and multilateral.
If we look at these six years, many BRI projects succeeded inbeing implemented, but not all because of the BRI’s success, butthanks to other factors. For example, BRI projects include a plethora
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/Author Andreea Brînzăof projects related to other Chinese initiatives, like the AsianInfrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) or the 17+1 mechanism
between China and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, andnumerous projects were proposed long before the BRI came to life,
or are just activities of Chinese companies, which shouldn’t givethem the status of a BRI or even a Chinese project. For example,
China likes to promote the project of building the Pelješac Bridge inCroatia. But, actually, the project was made possible by the EU,
which finances it, and a Chinese company only won the tender toconstruct it. The same thing happened with some projects inPakistan, like the M-8 Motorway, which are labeled BRI projects only
because they are part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC), but they are Pakistani investments. In addition, although theAIIB and BRI are two different Chinese initiatives, sometimes theAIIB is mistakenly placed under the BRI’s umbrella.
There is another type of BRI success which China promotes, thatof the trains which connect China with Europe. They are the mostvisible and successful story of the BRI, reinforcing the narrative ofBRI as an infrastructure project. But, in fact, they are a link between
China and Europe based on reusing the old Eurasian railways inorder to transport goods, without even refurbishing these old tracks.
The idea was hatched by a private company, Hewlett-Packard, in2012, but was successfully taken over by China and implemented
because it didn’t necessitate large costs, apart from the trains andgovernment subsidies. The subsidies were used to promote theusage of the trains instead of maritime shipping, making themcheaper, but the Europe-China railways still aren’t an economic
success story, taking into account that many trains travels empty toand from Europe.
So six years and counting, the BRI’s biggest achievements havefailed to some extent, although they have been sold as successstories. The Port of Hambantota, the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, theAddis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, the Montenegro Motorway, the Portof Piraeus, the Port of Gwadar, the Europe-China railways – all had
problems at some point. Apart from this, many parts of BRI projects
are stuck in negotiations and are lagging behind. The SEZs andregenerable energy parks are the only BRI projects which have been
implemented on time. The other ones, like the Jakarta-Bandung
High-Speed Railway or the Budapest-Belgrade Railway, two flagship
BRI projects, remain only plans.

Major Nations’ Response to BRI
Because of these setbacks and problems, the BRI has failed toJapan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 201931

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Article 3deliver the impact and influence that was expected. But the BRI
didn’t pass unnoticed by the big powers. The US, the EU, Japan andIndia have all perceived the BRI mainly through negative optics, as aproject that needs to be contained.
Japan and India came up with some ideas to compete with theBRI, the best known being the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC),an Indo-Japanese version of the Maritime Silk Road, focused on the
Indian Ocean and Africa. Yet, just like the BRI, it is still only a vision.
But they didn’t stop there. In order to reduce China’s influence inAsia, together with the US and Australia, they also tried to revive theQuad (a security dialogue between the four countries). India, Japanand the US all used at some point in time another catchy phrase: theFree and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept. It is best known asJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s strategy toward the Indian
Ocean, but it is said to have been coined by an Indian naval officer
and it has also been used by the US, under the administration ofPresident Donald Trump, to emphasis its interest in the IndianOcean.
The EU perceives the BRI as a potentially dangerous initiative and,earlier this year, branded China as a “systemic rival”. The EU has
been doubtful about the BRI ever since its inception. In private
conversations with European officials four years ago, they told methat many EU members didn’t want to sign an MoU with China on theBRI because they didn’t know what the BRI meant. The lack of adefinition from the Chinese side only succeeded in making the EU
reluctant to embrace it, being concerned about the divisive power ofthe BRI. The EU feared that through its bilateral MoUs with EUmembers, China would try to attract these countries to its side,
dividing the bloc. Italy’s recent signing of an MoU with China
regarding the BRI was the climax of the EU’s fears.
Regarding the US, although Trump focused his narrative onHuawei, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo have emphasized in their foreign trips the need to containthe BRI. The US put a lot of pressure on Italy when it signed an MoU
with China regarding the BRI and also tries to undermine Chinese
investments in BRI countries. For example, in Myanmar, a team ofAmerican consultants succeeded in helping the government inrenegotiating the Chinese investment in the Port of Kyaukphyu and in
its SEZ.
Yet, there is something important to notice in US behavior. While
the BRI has been criticized, the main target of the US government
over the past two years has been a private Chinese company,Huawei. That can mean only one thing: Huawei is a greater threat for
the US than the BRI. Because the BRI isn’t yet a force that can affectthe US, the initiative has remained an afterthought, in comparison tothe trade war or the Huawei saga.

BRI Could Be Successful by Being Multilateralized
Six years after it was first articulated by Xi, the BRI risks remaining
only a catchy phrase. But things can change if China offers countries
the opportunity to not only observe the initiative, but to actually act.
Today, the BRI is only a “one-way project” – in the words of French
President Emmanuel Macron – based on one big power, China, and aplethora of host countries. By signing MoUs with every country
32 Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 2019

along the BRI, China only succeeds in improving its bilateralrelations with those countries and not creating a path forinvestments and regional development, as it wished at its inception.
The BRI is in fact a large web of bilateral MoUs between China anddozens of countries.
Following the path of the AIIB, which was successfullytransformed from a Chinese project into a well-regarded internationalbank, by opening to the world and to other great powers, the BRI
should do the same and become an international organization whereChina will be the designer, but not the leader, which will allow
countries to interact with one another and to merge projects andfunds. A BRI led by the primus inter pares rule will be better than a
BRI focused on China and led only by China. And once again, I will
use the AIIB example to highlight why an international organization
status would best suit the BRI. Like the BRI, the AIIB was once seen
as a threatening initiative coming from an emerging great power,
when it was first proposed by China. But after European countries
stepped in, with the United Kingdom, Germany and France at theforefront, the AIIB changed its image and became a success story.
So, abandoning the infrastructure project label and becoming anorganization, which can play a crucial role in Asia and beyond,should be China main’s goal. As my RISAP colleague Andrei Lungu
argued in a recent article, China should renounce its focus on hard
power (especially military power) and try to follow in Germany’s
footsteps: when it abandoned territorial ambitions and became partof an international organization, establishing the EU, its dream ofbecoming the leading power of Europe came true. This path should
be followed by China. In a period when East Asia is defined byterritorial claims and conflicts, a peaceful China will help stabilize theregion. Germany and Japan have proved that the period when they
didn’t focus on their military was the best time of their history, using
their resources for economic development. Although a China which
reduces its military capabilities is a far-fetched goal, because unlike
Japan or Germany it doesn’t enjoy the protection of another greatpower, China becoming a regional leader through an internationalorganization is a more achievable goal.
Following these ideas, China should focus its energy in the nearfuture on transforming the BRI into a strong internationalorganization, whose outcome could be a China whose power doesn’t“grow out of the barrel of a gun”, but from the wisdom of its soft
power strategy. Doing so, many countries will be willing to join theinitiative in order to gain benefits and to take part in shaping thisglobal project. A multilateral BRI will enjoy the contribution ofnumerous other countries, making it more efficient and more
successful.
If the BRI won’t take these steps, it risks remaining a vision
without significant achievements, a target for nicknames and opinion
articles and a disappointment for the countries that signed on to it.
Six years after it appeared on the international scene, the BRI needs
a new face if it is to succeed, and becoming an internationalorganization is its best chance.
Andreea Brînză is vice president of the Romanian Institute for the Study of
the Asia-Pacific (RISAP). Her research focuses on the geopolitics andgeoeconomics of China and especially on the Belt and Road Initiative.