A Legal Anal ysis of the Belt and Road Initiative: Towar ds a New Silk Road?

Abstract

Jizeng Fan * No international project supported by the Chinese government is able to compete with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Chinese government claims that BRI brings prosperity along the ancient Silk Roads, both on land and at sea. Moreover, many undeveloped or developing economies beyond the Silk Road region have got involved in the Initiative. Many Western observers regard the Initiative as a political strategy challenging the established global order on the basis of liberal ideologies. The book "a LeGaL anaLysis of the BeLt and road initiative: toWards a neW siLk road?" provides the relevant scholars a chance to rethink the multifaceted role that the Chinese government has played from a perspective of the international rule of law. Having regarded that the book "aims to overcome the divides, taking into consideration the different Eastern (Chinese) and Western perspective," 1 it would be appropriate to group all the contributors into two camps-Chinese and European Scholars-as both of them may have different concerns relating to BRI. Qingjiang KONG and Ming DU argue that the "leadership vacuum," caused by President Trump's retreat from actively shaping the global order, coincides with China rising to be the second-largest economy. However, Chinese competitiveness is fragile because the developed economies are still weak in recovery even the emerging ASEAN market poses a potential challenge to the Chinese labor-intensive China and WTO Review