An initial surge in freight prices — prompted by ships taking the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope — petered out in March, yet prices have now surged even higher

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.