Excerpts fr Belt and Road wiki--

The initial focus has been infrastructure investment, education, construction materials, railway and highway, automobile, real estate, power grid, and iron and steel.[22] Already, some estimates list the Belt and Road Initiative as one of the largest infrastructure and investment projects in history, covering more than 68 countries, including 65% of the world's population and 40% of the global gross domestic product as of 2017.[23][24] The project builds on the old trade routes that once connected China to the west, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta's routes in the north and the maritime expedition routes of Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He in the south. The Belt and Road Initiative now refers to the entire geographical area of the historic "Silk Road" trade route, which has been continuously used in antiquity.[25]

Military implications The BRI has been viewed as part of a strategy to lessen the effect of choke points such as the Strait of Malacca in the event of a military conflict and to blunt the U.S. island chain strategy.[50][51][52][53] A 2023 study by AidData of the College of William & Mary determined that overseas port locations subject to significant BRI investment raise questions of dual military and civilian use and may be favorable for future naval bases.[54][55]

Writing in 2023, David H. Shinn and academic Joshua Eisenman state that through the BRI, China seeks to strengthen its position and diminish American military influence, but that China's BRI activity is likely not a prelude to American-style military bases or American-style global military presence. . . .