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China's Long Term Trade and Currency Goals: The Belt & Road Initiative

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

John A. Mathews
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Abstract

While all eyes have been focused on the evolving US-China trade war, China has been pursuing multiple initiatives of which its long-term global investment strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious – and now (finally) being addressed by mainstream media and US Congressional hearings. China's BRI, encompassing the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the sea-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, is the world's largest multilateral infrastructure-building project. This initiative is now creating a community of states that have common interests in the building of infrastructure with China's financial assistance and in setting rules and standards for international trade within the BRI area. Through this process, the BRI is creating the world's largest trade and investment area, and one with clear security implications as China's geopolitical profile rises. Enjoying the highest level of political support in China, the multiple projects of the BRI utilize Chinese finance provided primarily by state development banks in an extension overseas of the industrial development model fashioned at home. Critical commentary has fastened on the possibility of countries entering “debt traps” as they sign up for BRI projects. Such claims need to be scrutinized from the perspective of China's own debt-fuelled economic development strategy and the mutual goals tying China to dozens of industrializing countries in a new arc of Chinese economic and financial diplomacy. The wider significance of BRI explored here includes its role in promoting the internationalization of China's currency and reinforcing China's industrial and energy strategies abroad.

Keywords

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)Maritime Silk RoadUS-China trade warinfrastructure development banksChina industrial strategyinternationalization of RMB
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , e5
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2019

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