Belt and Road Initiative: 13 Years, 150 Countries, $240 billion Investment, 10,000 Trains

In the autumn of 2013, President Xi Jinping, during visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, put forward the initiatives to jointly build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The initiative takes connectivity as its main theme, aiming to enhance policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds among countries, creating better conditions for trade and economic exchanges. Over the past 13 years, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has evolved from a Chinese proposal to international practice, becoming a widely popular international public good, with cooperation expanding to more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations.

China has successfully hosted three Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. In 2023, at the third forum, it announced eight actions to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, including building a multidimensional connectivity network, supporting an open world economy, carrying out practical cooperation, promoting green development, advancing scientific and technological innovation, supporting people-to-people exchanges, building a clean road, and improving international cooperation mechanisms. At present, the framework of 'six corridors, six roads, multiple countries, and multiple ports' has basically taken shape, and more than 30 special cooperation mechanisms have been established, covering trade, finance, humanities, education, environmental protection, and other fields.

From 2021 to the first half of 2025, two-way investment between China and BRI partner countries totaled more than US$240 billion. As of June 10, 2026, the China-Europe freight train service had exceeded 10,000 trips and transported over 1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). A number of major landmark projects have been completed, including the China-Laos Railway, the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, Chancay Port, and the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, which have driven economic development and improved people's livelihoods in partner countries. At the same time, financial institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund have provided diversified investment and financing support for BRI construction.

The implementation of the BRI Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan supports young scientists from partner countries to work in China on short-term assignments. The Silk Road Tourism City Alliance and the Alliance of International Science Organizations were established, and multi-lateral cooperation platforms were strengthened with partner countries in energy, taxation, disaster reduction, anti-corruption, think tanks, media, and culture. These measures have promoted mutual learning among different civilizations, covering intergovernmental cultural exchanges, people-to-people friendly contacts, and cooperation between universities and research institutions.