China's Belt and Road Initiative - The Rationale and Likely Impacts from the New Structural Economics Perspective

Abstract

China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 as a global development cooperation framework to fulfill its responsibility for assisting other developing countries. The initiative, based on China's experiences and strength, focuses on infrastructure and is enthusiastically received by both developing countries and multilateral development institutions as infrastructure is the bottleneck for growth in most developing countries. Using a new structural economics perspective, this article discusses China's rationale for proposing the BRI and analyzes the unprecedented opportunities that the initiative offers for partner countries to achieve their industrialization and modernization.