The People's Map of Global China published on 21 June 2021 an analysis titled "Is China's Belt and Road Initiative Slowing Down?" by Hong Zhang, George Mason University.
The author argues there is a widely held view that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) began to slow down even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This constitutes, however, a misunderstanding of the BRI concept. Outside China, there is a tendency to think of the BRI as just an infrastructure initiative. Instead, it should be seen more broadly. It is important to include China's trade, foreign direct investment, agreements signed, loans, soft power activity, high-level visits, etc. When all of these factors are taken into account, the author believes there has been no slowdown.
Comment: If only the Africa component of the BRI is taken into account, however, there are indications of a slow down in BRI-related activity across the board. Although it is true many new BRI agreements have been signed in Africa, in isolation, they are meaningless pieces of paper. China-Africa trade reached a peak in 2015. While it is slowly growing again, it has not returned to 2015 levels. China's FDI flows to Africa have flat lined in recent years. China's loans to Africa peaked in 2016 and declined sharply since. China's arms transfers peaked in 2016, dropped significantly in 2017 and have stayed low ever since.
At least in the case of Africa, China's engagement across Africa is generally on the downswing, albeit perhaps only temporarily. COVID-19 has contributed to the problem since early 2020.
