What is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)?

The Belt and Road Initiative also known as One Belt One Road, is a strategy of global infrastructure initiated by the Chinese government across the regions to improve economic growth of the region and definitely create a win-win situation for the People's Republic of China along with the participant countries in the project.

Initially, this project was announced in the year of 2013, with the purpose of restoring the ancient 'Silk Route' that link Asia and Europe. Over the years, the project scope has been extended to include new regions and developmental initiatives. This mega project included building a big network of railways, roads, ports, power grids, pipelines of gas and oil, and other infrastructure projects.

The or BRI consists of various mega projects, but the two main projects are, 'Silk Road Economic Belt', which is basically land based project and the main purpose is to connect China with Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe. The second one project is called the '21st Century Maritime Silk Road', which is primarily sea based and is expected to link China's Southern Coast to the Mediterranean, Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia. This project first revealed to the world in the year of 2013, during the Chinese President Xi Jinping, to Kazakhstan and Indonesia.

This project contain the following six main economic corridors.

(1) The China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connects South Western China through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. (2) The New Eurasian Land Bridge, which connects Western China to Western Russia. (3) The China Mongolia Russia Corridor, which link North China to Eastern Russia via Mongolia. (4) The China Central Asia - West Asia Corridor, which connects Western China to Turkey through Central and West Asia. (5) The China Indonesia Peninsula Corridor, which connects southern China to Singapore via Indio, China. (6) and the last one is, the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Corridor, which close together southern China to India via Bangladesh and Myanmar. Along with this, the 'Maritime Silk Road' connects coastal China to the Mediterranean Sea through Singapore, Malaysia, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor is one of the six corridors realize by the Chinese government under the President Xi Jinping to connect different regions and aspires to bring together billions of people across the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe via a huge network of roads, railways and pipelines of gas and oil. The BRI is a new name of the old Silk Road, but on an industrial level, that would provide connectivity among different regions and could possibly serve as an integrating platform to improve lives and living standards through increased business and investment.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor project was signed in February 2013 by the former president of Pakistan Asif Ali, with the Chinese government, the project started in April 2015, when Pakistan Muslim League was governing. The project main aims at construction of a huge framework of roads, railways and pipelines in Pakistan that would reduce the distance between China with rest of the countries.