This is CBSi and the world. I'm John Batchelor. Belt and Road Initiative. Once upon a time

it dominated conversations about the People's Republic of China outside of the boundaries of the mainland.

Belton Road Initiative.

Where are we now?

I welcome Victoria Herzeg of the Geopolitical futures and analysts.

She is in Budapest writing about the

Belt and Road Initiative 2024 and it is considerably less than the

imagined that they're hoped for. The question is what happens next? than the 2015, which is an easy memory, the People's Republic of China had four trillion dollars in foreign reserves.

And of that money, the presumption was the Belton Road would receive a bounty.

What was the mission when Belton Road was first initiated?

I remember She Jinping talking about it, but I didn't pay attention to his dream. What was it then when he had four trillion? Good evening to you.

Good evening to you, John. Thank you for having me. So yes, when Belton Road Initiative was first introduced, it was like the biggest dream for China.

It was a monumental idea. It was an idea that was meant to create an expanded interdependent market for China, a market that would connect different regions of the world,

Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe, so basically almost the entire world connecting these regions with special

regard to developing countries in need of investment and innovation and with that it was also meant to grow China's

geoeconomic and geopolitical power over those regions.

So it was something that was introduced to be a Vin-Vin corporation, something beneficial for both the developing regions in need of investment

and also of course for China, for China to have more power, more might, and also this reputation of being this great benefactor of nations in need.

So that was the initial idea of Belt and Road. Yes I believe that

sometimes that's called soft power so we come to how it was going to be done

the China Development Bank the Bank of China, and you mentioned

an Ex-An Ex-Exim Bank as well. They were the deliverers of money for a credit for projects.

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