The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s ambitious project to connect itself to more than 70 countries in Central Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East through new roads, rails, ports, sea lanes, and air links. This $1.3 trillion cornerstone of Chinese foreign policy is positioning China at the center of over half of world trade.

Far more than a mere infrastructure investment, the BRI is a masterful grand strategy to create nothing less than a new world order based on the Chinese model of government and its financial institutions. Yet, as the passing of the baton of the world leadership takes place, the U.S. seems curiously incapable or uninterested in devising a counterstrategy even though loss of American influence and power could lead to the end of the postwar liberal world order.

We’ll unpack the BRI, examining how it forms the heart of China’s grand strategy and how that will permit China to supersede American influence in Asia. Is the BRI a form of neocolonialism? Should U.S. businesses treat it as a business opportunity? Is the BRI China’s version of the Marshall Plan – or the Chinese equivalent of putting a man on the Moon?

We’ll begin with an interactive exchange of information guided by assigned reading, which will permit us to develop a proposed U.S. response to the BRI. The class will feature lecture and discussion with an emphasis on active exchange of ideas.