No national project of global reach carries as much stake and attracts as much attention as China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Conceived in 2013, the BRI is the colossal brainchild of President Xi Jinping and his government.
If realised as planned, it would expand China's footprint throughout the Eurasian landmass and through the high seas from China to eastern Africa. The grand project should be understood as a function and campaign of China's quest for a return to the imperial glory it lost over the past couple of centuries.
Indeed, the BRI harks back more than a thousand years when trade flourished along what was then called the "Silk Road" that straddled the Middle Kingdom and the Western world.
