Xi's trip to Greece and Brazil highlights China's championing of multilateralism

China's Belt and Road Initiative has received a lot of criticism from the United States and some of its allies, which have tried to denigrate it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad and saddle countries with unsustainable debt. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for instance, has alleged it amounts to China peddling "corrupt infrastructure deals in exchange for political influence".

Yet for participating economies, such claims could not be further from the truth. For these economies the initiative is a practical development booster and an important vehicle for multilateralism in the face of the damaging unilateralism of the world's largest economy.

Greece is one of the countries that is frequently held up as an example by those trying to besmirch the Belt and Road. But President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to Greece at the invitation of Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos highlights the hollowness of such allegations.