ABSTRACT
BRI is a multi-billion dollar project involving 149 countries across continents. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the initiative involves governments of many countries seeking investments from China, the projects under the initiative are now increasingly attracting critical observations from intellectuals, policy planners and even protests by common people in recipient countries.
The general lack of transparency has been a major concern and a drawback. The initiative also has the perils of over-dependency on a single source for supplies and the unidirectional mode of logistics planning.
BRI has been facing multiple challenges, including of not respecting territorial integrity of affected countries in formulation and execution of projects. In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian military operation in Ukraine have created dilemmas over projects’ continued implementation and sustainability.
The pandemic and the environment of trans-regional insecurity have the potential to severely affect the project’s feasibility. It is to be seen how the initiative overcomes the two challenges.
