By Prithvi Gupta
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), now in its 11thyear, has had more misses than hits as the world’s largest connectivity initiative. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature transnational connectivity and infrastructure development bid has faced wide-ranging criticism and scepticism within the international community. Yet, the BRI’s global engagement stands atmore thanUS$1 trillion, having executed 20,700 BRI projects in 150 countries, across 38 economic sectors.
To address the BRI’s structural challenges, cope with the initiative’s internationalcriticismand adapt the global connectivity initiative to the new domains of geopolitical contestation (new energy, green transition technologies, critical raw minerals, trade-enabling infrastructure corridors), President Xiconvenedthe third Belt and Road Forum (BRF) in 2023. The third BRF outcomedocumentdelineated the BRI’s strategic pivot to practical cooperation, multimodal connectivity under the BRI, globalisation of trade, cooperation in new and green transition technologies, setting global standards for connectivity cooperation under the BRI framework and institutionalisation of the BRI for increased accountability and scrutiny.
Almost two years later, an assessment of the real-time implementation of the third BRF’sdeliverablesand promised adaptations has become imperative. This article assesses the BRI’s structural shifts and adaptations, and analyses the evolved BRI in the context of the broader geopolitical contestation in connectivity cooperation.
The BRI is evolving
To address its aforementioned long-term structural challenges, China institutionalised the BRI’s restructuring in five ways during the third BRF: greening projects, focusing more on partner countries’ debt sustainability, increasing Chinese private sector involvement, enhancing partnerships with international organisations, and shifting from grandiose to smaller, refined projects.
At the end of 2024, Chinese BRI economic engagementstoodat US$ 1.174 billion— constituting US$ 704 billion in construction contracts and US$ 470 billion in investments. Afterrecord lowsbetween 2019 and 2022 (below US$ 75 billion), Chinese economic engagement under the BRI saw a massive uptick in the next two years. 2023 and 2024 recorded thehighestever BRI investments-to-construction contracts ratio at 52:48 (US$ 52.4 billion) and thehighestever BRI economic engagement (US$ 120 billion), respectively.
Since the BRI’s inception, the average deal size hasdippedfrom US$ 600 million to less than US$ 400 million for the first time in 2023 and 2024. This indicates a shift from large-scale grandiose projects to smaller, more sustainable ones, as promised during the third BRF. In another first, Chinese private companies, BYD, Huayou Cobalt, and CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited) emerged as thelargestannual BRI investors in 2023. Notably, the third BRFfeatured384 private companies’ participation, a marked increase over the secondBRF’s274.
These figures delineate the private sector’s growing ownership and the risk appetite within the BRI economic engagement framework; a shift to smaller, sustainable projects; and an institutional response to the West’s connectivity initiatives that offer the private sector’s involvement as an alternative to state-led development assistance. The past two years have also marked a strategic and geographical pivot in the BRI’s engagement. Africa and West Asia have featured more prominently than ever, and there is a shift to green energy, digital, sustainable, high-visibility, green and new technology projects in the BRI.
Beijing’s BRI investments and contracts in the technology, manufacturing, mining, and metals sectors target secure green energy and technology supply chains at all levels. China is a global leader in green energy generation, transmission and critical minerals refining. Chinese investments in these sectors aim to solidify Beijing’s heft in the emerging tech, green transition technologies, and Critical Raw Mineral (CRMs) supply chain sectors. CRMs and new technology manufacturing are essential for powering the green transition and the Electric Vehicle (EV) industry. Accordingly, the BRI’s technology manufacturing (US$ 22 billion) and the metals and mining (US$ 30 billion) sectorsrecordedtheir highest levels of economic engagement; an increase of 1,000 percent and 124 percent, respectively, from 2020. These metals and mining investments aid the technology manufacturing sector funding under the BRI framework. Therefore, in both years,battery manufacturingandgreen power generationinvestments/construction contracts totalled US$ 13 billion and US$ 25 billion, respectively.
Beijing’s continued interest and strategic diversions from old energy and transport sectors to new energy, critical minerals, green energy, tech supply chain, and manufacturing investments are emblematic of the BRI’s evolving nature, contrary to Western opinions proclaiming the initiative dead.
Intensifying geopolitics of connectivity cooperation
The BRI is credited for underlining the geopolitical imperative of connectivity cooperation within the broader international milieu. Available data, since inception in 2013,suggeststhat China hassignedover 250 BRI cooperation agreements with 150 countries, as of January 2025. Through bilateral Belt and Road cooperation, Beijing emerged as the top trading partner of 91 BRI countries in 2023. In 2024, China’s trade with the BRI countriescrossedUS$ 4 trillion, and Chinese outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stock in all the BRI countries collectivelyamountedto US$ 483.2 billion.
Multifaceted economic cooperation under the BRI framework has accorded Beijing with geopolitical and geoeconomic heft on the global stage and in the developing world, which adds to its soft power projection as a great power. Western connectivity initiatives and connectivity paradigms by regional rivals like India and Japan have an underlying imperative of countering the BRI. These countries have repeatedly highlighted the BRI’s fallacies (authoritarian model of development, graft, mismanagement, opacity and overt state involvement) while stating that their alternatives (theGlobal Gateway,Blue Dot Network,India’s IDEAS) are democratic, sustainable and fiscally responsible. The 3rd BRF counters all these through its recalibrations.
With the United States (US) President Donald Trump’s upending foreign policy stances in play, connectivity cooperation has taken a backseat. Although he has reaffirmed support for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment’s (PGII’s)Lobito Corridor,countries such as India, Japan, Australia, and France need to band together and continue to build on the connectivity cooperation (trade enabling infrastructure development, investments, and regulatory alignments) launched in the past years. If they do not step up, China will fill the development finance vacuum left behind by the US, as it did in Africa and South America between 2005 and 2015 (which consolidated the BRI’s heft in development diplomacy).
Conclusion
The BRI is not waning but rather recalibrating in response to mounting international scrutiny and diminishing returns on earlier modes of engagement. The reforms announced at the 3rd Belt and Road Forum—framed as a pivot towards sustainability, digitalisation, and private sector inclusion—are as much a defensive strategy to salvage the BRI’s credibility as they are a proactive course correction. While Beijing seeks to reframe the narrative, fundamental concerns around opacity, strategic leverage, and uneven developmental outcomes persist. Without coherent and value-driven alternatives from democratic actors, the rebranded BRI risks entrenching a model of connectivity skewed towards China’s geopolitical ambitions.
- About the author: Prithvi Guptais a Junior Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation’s Strategic Studies Programme
- Source: This article was published by Observer Research Foundation
