The best part of this report, which he devotes most of his report to, is an up-to-date coverage of actual efforts to create this imaginative "one belt road" project. Afterwards he writes the following:
Taken singly, the projects may seem random or haphazard. Taken together they are a brilliant way of playing win-win politics with China's neighbors and trading partners. China gets to increase markets and stabilize shaky trading partners and the recipients of China's largesse get a multi-billion dollar shot in the arm that comes without the usual burden of IMF debt conditions.However he provides little evidence to support the "three things" other than common sense.
So we have a happy and prosperous China recognizing that its long term interest lays in spreading some of that wealth around to help prop up its neighbors. Rather than seeing other countries as competitors in a cutthroat dog-eat-dog world, China is treating its One Road, One Belt collaborators as partners whose rising tide will help lift the Chinese dragon boat. What could possibly go wrong?
Three things.