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.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative — a platform for global cooperation, in which Beijing is actively creating and developing sea and land routes to Asia, Africa and Europe. The starting point of this grandiose project was the city of Xi’an, from which the ancient Silk Road originated.