Debt-Trap Diplomacy or Development Strategy? The Truth Behind Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

One of the most important infrastructural and investment projects in the modern geopolitics is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was implemented by China in 2013. Despite being sold as an answer to developing the country into a more connected place so as to address the infrastructure shortage the project has brought a lot of arguments concerning its strategic worth. Critics refer to the BRI as debt-trap diplomacy, in which China is manipulating debt dependency to obtain a wider political presence, particularly in Asia and Africa. Its proponents, on the other hand, see it as a reasonable instrument of economic growth and regionalization. The paper critically analyzes these conflicting narrative using economic, political and social prism of the BRI with particular regards to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and selected examples in Africa and Asia. The findings aim at identifying if the BRI is a model of debt-related dependency or a reconstructionism model of global development with policy implications, sovereignty implications and sustainable growth implications.