Indonesia's Jakarta Bandung Railway began test runs in August 2023 the first high-speed Railway in Southeast Asia is a signature project of China's Belton Road initiative an ambitious plan for economic integration on a massive scale ten years since Chinese president Xi Jinping unveiled his Grand Vision of building a new Silk Road across three continents how far has the Belton Road initiative come along oh the Belton Road initiative envisioned linking over 150 countries across Asia Europe and Africa via Railways highways and ports the initial plan saw a land-based belt running Westward through Central Asia into Europe and a maritime Road connecting Chinese coastal cities with Africa and the Mediterranean the program has since been expanded to include projects across East Central and Southeast Asia the Middle East Africa Eastern Europe and South America to date at least 152 countries have signed trade and infrastructure deals with China under the initiative 52 were in Africa and 40 are in Asia with the remaining scattered across the Middle East Latin America and Europe many of the projects are in developing countries apart from the Bandung High-Speed Rail other Flagship projects include a highway that will eventually connect kashgar in China's Far West with Pakistan's guadar port it's part of the china-pakistan economic Corridor or CPAC a mega infrastructure project that's been likened to the Marshall Plan in scale in terms of its potential impact to Pakistan's economy but CPAC along with some other belt and road projects has also run into hurdles [Music] Sri Lanka defaulted on loans for its 1.5 billion US Dollar Port City project forcing the government to hand over the hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease the default has been cited by Belton Road detractors as proof that the initiative has become a debt trap for some countries the built-in Road initiative can provide much needed infrastructure financing to partner countries but these Ventures can also lead to problematic increase in debt potentially limited other spending as that Services arise and rise and creating balances of payment challenges as a geopolitically motivated claim and it has been um the debunked by experts they did a piece they were very convincing historical and uh current analysis on the origin and why the long couldn't be paid and so so the the background story was much more complicated than that fact but observers say the impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn on developing countries has prompted a rethink on China's part the focus they say has now shifted to smaller more sustainable projects there's both structural conditions making the transition to sustainable gray smaller digital health related projects to be more viable than the large physical energy infrastructure dubbed small but beautiful by Chinese officials and state media the projects are in the areas of Agriculture Healthcare and poverty reduction still China has not completely abandoned major programs particularly in strategic regions at the first China central Asia Summit in May China announced a 3.8 billion US dollar Belton Road expansion in the region foreign [Music] meanwhile the only major Western Country to sign up considering backing out of the deal Italy said the Belton Road had not delivered expected benefits but officials insisted they still wanted to maintain economic ties with China uh uh a queen disease Road initiative [Music] elements regulations so as the level of trade with the West Falls China has been turning to Belton Road countries to diversify exports along the Belton Road trade routes grew by 7.4 percent in the first seven months of 2023 according to China's General administration of Customs those efforts to diversify looks at to transform those economies into important export locations as a hedge against weak demand from the U.S Japan and Europe