ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can be a synergistic force in recent history to reshape the course of globalisation, especially the regional dimension and consequences of globalisation. Globalisation, in a primarily economic sense, can be defined as increasing financial flow and commodity trade across national borders, augmented by progress in technologies of transportation and communications. The shift of economic globalisation, especially since the financial crisis of 2008, appears to have run into the BRI’s arrival and progression since 2013. As a global innovation leader that sustains some traditional manufacturing, China has stretched its occupied space and sphere of influence across the global economic hierarchy. Globalisation is an inherently uneven spatial process that tracks the unequal cross-national distribution of economic and political power. The West’s role in leading globalisation became stronger during the 1700s when the Industrial Revolution brought about a second stage of globalisation.
