Donate
Follow TFF
Facebook-f X-twitter Linkedin-in Tiktok Telegram Weixin Vk
China and Silk

BRI explainer: What is the Belt and Road?

By People’s Daily Online

July 28, 2019

This is an explainer from a Chinese perspective and it is the kind of information and perspective we get far too little of in the West – in spite of it being so diverse, so big and so visionary. What – one may ask – is the West so afraid of? And will the West be better off if it ignores the BRI and isolates itself? I do not think so. – Jan Oberg, The Transnational’s editor

After its successful debut two years ago, the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, a leading platform for international cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, will be held in Beijing again this month, drawing representatives from over 150 countries, including 37 leaders of foreign governments, under the theme of “Belt and Road Cooperation, shaping a brighter shared future.” 

Although you may have heard the term before, do you know what the BRI is?

Originally posted on People’s Daily Online April 23, 2019 here

More than two thousand years ago people of Eurasia explored and opened up routes of trade and cultural exchanges that linked the major civilizations of Asia, Europe and Africa, later called the Silk Road. For thousands of years, the Silk Road Spirit – “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit” – has been passed from generation to generation, contributing to the prosperity and development of the countries along the Silk Road.

In the 21st century, a new era marked by development and cooperation, it is more important for the world to carry on the Silk Road Spirit in face of the weak recovery of the global economy, and complex international and regional situations. First announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI is China’s ambitious effort to improve regional cooperation and connectivity on a trans-continental scale.

Continue reading the article and see the English-language video
about the BRI here.

Share

China and SilkImagined/RealWorld future

Related Posts

building
Ordinary people want peace: Can citizen diplomacy build a safer future for everyone?
Jan Oberg February 19, 2026 What a thrill to be interviewed by former British diplomat Ian Proud! Don’t waste a minute: acquaint yourself with him here on his homepage, which he elegantly calls “Proud Diplomat.” Notice also his book, A Misfit In Moscow. Ian is, of course, also on Substack, where he calls himself The Peace Monger, and recently he set up his own PeaceMonger Channel on YouTube. For once, I was not interviewed as if I were a military geopolitical expert, where I normally have to twist the whole thing in the direction of peace. No, we both had a focus on peace – why it has been disappeared by research, politics and the media, but also what can be done to shape a more peaceful future for us all. One idea we came up with was that of connecting people through citizens diplomacy – in an era where...
Nonviolence
Resist and Build Alternatives to the Trump Regime Now: Part 3
By Jan ObergTFF co-founder and director February 11, 2026 PART 3 — ECONOMICS, TRADE & FINANCIAL SOVEREIGNTY A. Trade Measures & Market Signaling Economic pressure can be applied instantly and scaled without violence. Immediate Measures (within a week) Government boycott US goods and services  A very powerful signal which over time will be felt. Targeted tariffs on selected U.S. goods Symbolic but high-visibility sectors send a clear message. Suspend trade facilitation talks A peaceful pause that signals deep concern. Freeze U.S. participation in public procurement – military procurement in particular A nonviolent way to reduce influence. Competition law review of U.S. corporations A legal tool to scrutinise market dominance. Longer-Term Measures EU–Asia–Africa trade corridors Reducing reliance on U.S. markets. European supply chains for critical minerals Strategic autonomy in resource access. European Strategic Trade Authority Monitoring coercive practices globally. Euro-denominated commodity markets Weakening the dollar’s pricing monopoly. The EU must resume contacts and negotiations with Russia, focusing on energy cooperation To...
China and Silk
Professor Zhang Weiwei and Jan Oberg in dialogue
Professor Zhang Weiwei is a highly respected Chinese intellectual and professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. He is the director of its China Institute and also runs a series of conversations with many different people around the world. Here is what came out of their meetings there and in Skopje, Macedonia in October 2024: & As you can see, also at the end of the second one, we both enjoy win-win exchanges like these about world order issues. Zhang Weiwei is known for using videos and social media to reach a large audience in China and worldwide. We suggest you see many more of Zhang Weiwei’s conversations – like recently with Professor Jeffrey Sachs – on the Thinkers’ Forum on YouTube. PSTFF posts hundreds of videos, its own and those of others, in our Video Collections on TFF Substack – including those that appear on YouTube. However, TFF has been cancelled by Google-owned...

Recent Articles

Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...

TFF on Substack

Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack

Posts
Videos
TFF Channel on Rumble

Most Popular

Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Read More
Living-Peace-Sign-Budapest-copy
Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
b54a1f10-8c65-4f0b-9dd5-4abc0a7d04cc_2659x2659
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
010
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Screenshot 2026-10-02 011738
TFF Blog
Q & A for China Social Science Academy Journal: How to promote innovation?
Jan ObergPhD, director, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFFLund, Sweden October 2, 2026 This is my full original manuscript. The Chinese Academy of Social Science, CASS, makes two publications out if it. 1. China’s Five-year plan emphasized the capabilities of basic research and original innovation. It is regarded as the goal of the future social development, which, as required, should be significantly enhanced. Can you comment on the importance of original innovation in research and academic study? I believe it is easier to define “original innovation” in the natural sciences than in social sciences. The breaking points of what constitutes something new, or innovative, are not quite as sharp in the latter. But in both fields it is about opening up something that was closed, unseen, unexplored before – making manifest what was earlier latent. Innovations come in many forms and shapes – naming something that was not...
arctic-circle-map
Conflict analysis
US-Denmark-Greenland Agreement: The Winner Takes It All – Forever
The agreement is catastrophic both because of what it says and what it doesn’t mention. It reduces further the major asset of security policies: Freedom of action. Jan Oberg TFF director September 25, 2026 A couple of hours before the agreement was signed on September 22, 2026, I published the following 13 hypotheses about what it would most likely contain on TFF Substack (in English). I was wrong on only the first point. Contrary to what Trump had written on his Truth Social platform, it does not appear to come into force immediately. In fact, it turned out to be worse than even I had anticipated. After these hypotheses now come a number of reflections in light of what the agreement actually contains, and does not contain, as well as the way in which it has generally been presented by major media outlets and by the public-service broadcaster DR. My...
girl-5894831_1280
Media
✅ TFF Share Blog, News & Notes from 2021 till today
Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...