Foreign firms, too, gain from Belt & Road

By teaming up with Chinese partners, MNCs strike gold in the B&R Initiative

New facts appear to demystify the Belt and Road Initiative led by China, which aims to strengthen nations on and beyond the ancient Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road routes through trade and infrastructure networks across Asia, Africa and Europe.

For long, skeptics believed the B&R Initiative, which was launched in 2013, will ultimately benefit China and its companies more than others. There were even whisper campaigns that development is merely the ostensible goal of the initiative; the perceived truth was that it is China's covert attempt to emerge as a 21st-century hegemon.