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Chapter39ChinaBeltRoadupdated20251.pptxChapter 39 China’s Belt & Road Imitative
This lesson plan was created with support from the KU Center for East Asian Studies Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center grant. For more information about our Center, please visit ceas.ku.edu. To learn more about Center resources or to address any questions, please email us at [email protected].
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Essential Question
Will the BRI strengthen global cooperation or increase global tensions?
One of these depicts trade routes proposed for the Belt & Road Initiative. Another depicts routes in the 11th-12th century C.E. Which is which? What evidence in the images helps you decide?
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China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
The BRI is an ambitious plan to develop two new trade routes connecting China with the rest of the world. But the initiative is about far more than infrastructure.
It is an effort to develop an expanded, interdependent market for China, grow China’s economic and political power, and create the right conditions for China to build a high technology economy.
Why democracies are turning against the Belt and Road Initiative
The initiative is largely treated with suspicion in the US and its major allies, characterized largely in terms of debt trap diplomacy, as a predatory, opaque enterprise, and as a threat to Western interests.
Economic Sustainability: “Debt Trap Diplomacy”?
Debt-trap diplomacy: is a term to describe an international financial relationship where a creditor country extends debt to a borrowing nation partially, or solely, to increase the lender's political leverage.
Sphere of Influence
A region where a country exerts significant cultural, political, or economic power
BRI extends China's sphere of influence globally.
Soft Power: Influence through culture, economic ties, and diplomacy rather than military force—BRI is a major tool of Chinese soft power.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Investment made by one country in another—China invests heavily in BRI partner nations.
Benefits of One Belt, One Road
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Strengthen connections across countries
Freer movement of goods and talents
Learning more advanced and efficient management know-how
Broader markets for all, which will lead to finer specialization and higher efficiency
Open and fair competition will enhance efficiency
Returns to capital to be improved
China’s New Silk Road– The Belt & Road Initiative
In 2003, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China’s plans to expand Eurasian trade routes and infrastructure through Chinese investment of funds and labor.
His plan was called the Belt & Road Initiative
Map from Asia Green Real Estate: https://www.asiagreen.com/images/easyblog_articles/29/China-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-map.jpg
Photo: Xinhua
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Belt & Road Initiative Debate
Economic sustainability
Humanitarian concerns
Environmental sustainability
Humanitarian Concerns
Consider employment, migration, poverty, educational opportunity, and labor rights in your assigned country.
How will Belt & Road initiative projects impact your country in these areas?
What kinds of assurances do you need from China regarding these issues?
For example, you might request that local labor be used for infrastructure projects rather than migrant labor.
Environmental Sustainability
What environmentally sensitive environments and animals exist in your country?
Will BRI projects impact these areas/creatures?
What environmental challenges exist in your country?
Will BRI projects help or harm the environment?
Summary
The Belt and Road Initiative is a massive China-led infrastructure project that aims to stretch around the globe.
Some analysts see the project as a disturbing expansion of Chinese power, and the United States has struggled to offer a competing vision.
The initiative has stoked opposition in some Belt and Road countries that have experienced debt crises.
Draw and color and original Political Cartoon on China’s Belt Road Project
On the Left Side of your Notes
Canvas Review Assignment
How Is the Belt and Road Initiative Advancing China’s Interests? (One paragraph)
2. In what ways does contemporary trade impact culture, society, and politics? (One Paragraph)
3. Does the BRI benefit participating countries more, or does it benefit China more? (One Paragraph)
