The Belt and Road Initiative: China’s quiet path to superpower status

“China is a sleeping giant; when she wakes, she will shake the world.” This quote, allegedly said by Napoleon Bonaparte more than 200 years ago, still rings true today. Less than ten years after Waterloo, China represented more than a quarter of the world’s GDP, but this economic juggernaut was soon to endure one of the hardest periods in its history. From the Opium Wars that forced drugs on its population, to being carved up by European powers, to the literal collapse of its millennia-old imperial government, by the 1920s China was nothing more than a divided land ruled by warlords. It comes as no surprise that, once stability was restored on mainland China by Mao Zedong, he popularized the description of the previous century as the “Century of Humiliation.” From that point onward, it became a primary goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to restore China’s standing, and no one has come closer to achieving it than President Xi Jinping through his flagship project, the Belt and Road Initiative.

China’s modern revival and the origins of the BRI

Originally named the One Belt, One Road, the initiative was created in 2013 as an answer to global demands for better infrastructure and more reliable economic connectivity and was conceived not only as a development initiative to meet these pressing needs, but also as a strategic effort to anchor China more deeply in an emerging multipolar order.

The structure of the belt and road network

In practical terms, the initiative operates through a network of land and maritime corridors, respectively the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, that bind China to more than 150 countries across the world. Fittingly, China unveiled those two roads in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, signalling from the outset that the BRI was intended as an international, cooperative project rather than a purely China-centred undertaking. Its projects focus on upgrading railways, highways, ports, pipelines, power plants, and digital infrastructure to improve connectivity and reduce transport times.

Alongside this physical infrastructure, the BRI also functions as a wider cooperation platform through which China and partner states harmonize regulations, promote trade, and coordinate long-term development planning. By creating shared standards and smoother institutional frameworks, the initiative aims to deepen economic ties and lay more durable foundations for stable, long-term regional integration.

To structure this wide range of cooperation, the BRI is built around five cooperation priorities that clarify how the initiative functions in practice.

The first priority is policy coordination, which establishes the political and institutional foundations for cooperation. The second priority is infrastructure connectivity, which makes sure that all BRI nations are linked by a modern logistics system. Once physical links begin to develop, the third priority, unimpeded trade, which makes sure that goods and services move smoothly across borders and supply chains remain stable and predictable, becomes essential. This naturally ties into the fourth priority, financial integration, which brings free capital flows and harmonized finance rules to the system. And last but not least, the People-to-People Priority ensures that cooperation extends beyond governments and markets through educational exchanges and growing social linkages.

And with well-defined policies, the BRI has attracted many different nations from all around the globe, especially developing nations. Not only does the BRI’s aim of increasing trade and connectivity align perfectly with developing nations’ objectives, but its financing is also based on economic rather than political motivations, allowing those developing nations to maintain their sovereignty. Moreover, BRI projects are meant to complement existing institutions, not replace them, giving nations that participate in it a wide berth of economic movement.

Countries such as Spain demonstrate that it is entirely feasible to remain within the EU while opening new economic corridors. Thanks to its participation in the BRI, Spain is uniquely positioned to act as a mediator between China and the EU – a role that would give it a significant strategic advantage. And here lies the main strength of the BRI: it creates a win-win scenario where all participants benefit without giving primacy to any single nation.

Yet this does not mean that China fails to benefit from being at the center of the BRI. By its very nature, connectivity creates economic centrality, and since China is the architect of the initiative, many of the major corridors begin in China, pass through China, or connect to Chinese systems. This inevitably gives China a degree of influence, influence grounded in mutual dependence, certainly, but influence, nonetheless.

Furthermore, the infrastructure standards of the BRI are based on Chinese standards, meaning that Chinese norms become global norms, steadily increasing their reach. Building on this, financial ties expand China’s monetary influence, with transactions being done increasingly in yuan, while the adoption of Chinese digital infrastructure further normalizes Chinese technology for nations that were previously wary of Chinese technology. In addition, by pushing for cultural and educational exchanges, China reinforces these economic and technological connections, allowing its ideas to permeate other societies and giving it significant soft power at the expense of the United States.

And with reports that France is considering inviting China to the 2026 G7 summit in Evian, Mao’s goal of China becoming a world superpower without firing a shot is finally becoming a reality. Empowered by the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi can confidently assert that China no longer needs the world; the world needs China.