After almost a decade of existence, the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature infrastructure program, is in trouble. While many countries with real development needs have jumped on the bandwagon, the cooling global economy is exposing serious problems with BRI projects around the world. The pressure is now on Xi, fresh off a victory lap at the party congress, to reboot the initiative in a viable way.

The original model of the BRI was ridden with problems, but there’s no guarantee that the next iteration will be any better. Analysis of how the program has been portrayed by China’s propaganda suggests that BRI 2.0 may well be more questionable than 1.0.
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