Against the prevailing narrative of the The Belt and Road as a top-down strategy to spread China’s geopolitical influence, there is the BRI’s impact through its first decade as emanating «from the middle out and bottom up» via transport-enabled corridors traversing a large number of regions within and across national territories.

While the COVID-19 Pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption to the world economy, it has also strengthened the rail links between China and Europe, and industry experts believe the growing volume of rail freight between East and West will aid the economic recovery of countries and regions along the routes of the Belt & Road Initiative