China’s Belt and Road 2.0: Smaller projects, bigger influence

On July 1, a cargo train from western China reached Chancay, Peru — a symbolic milestone in Beijing’s quieter but sharper new global infrastructure strategy. As the Belt and Road Initiative evolves, ports, railways and data cables are replacing fanfare with functional dominance. Since late April, Guangzhou port has operated direct maritime routes to Chancay, slashing transport costs for Chinese and Latin American exporters by nearly 30 percent.

With shipping times reduced, this once-sleepy fishing village has morphed into a logistical pivot point — and the latest jewel in China’s infrastructure crown. COSCO Shipping, which owns a 60 percent stake in the Chancay port, has positioned the terminal as a regional logistics hub that will handle more than 1 million containers annually by 2030.

This is the new face of Beijing’s global strategy. Less about ribbon-cutting photo ops, more about rewiring the world.

Over a decade since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative, China has recalibrated. The era of splashy megaprojects is giving way to a quieter, greener — and strategically sharper — phase. Smart ports in Latin America. Fiber-optic corridors in Africa. Mangrove restoration hubs in Southeast Asia. All bearing the stamp of Chinese capital, code and connectivity.

Call it Belt and Road 2.0. It’s smaller, but smarter. And it’s winning influence where traditional diplomacy is absent or distracted.

By 2023, trade between China and Belt and Road nations exceeded $19 trillion, according to Chinese state media. But numbers alone don’t tell the full story. China’s strategy today is as much about norm-setting as it is about nation-building. It exports standards, embeds surveillance tech, and retools the political grammar of aid. A power plant might come with a data-sharing clause. A port might double as a security outpost.

In East Africa, Chinese-built telecom backbones now carry not just bandwidth but also dependency. In Indonesia, mangrove preservation is coupled with carbon offset markets tied to Chinese firms. The lines between sustainability, surveillance and statecraft are increasingly blurred.

This isn’t pure altruism — but in many regions where Western efforts emphasize defense cooperation, China’s civilian infrastructure push fills a different kind of vacuum. While the U.S.-led Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment and EU’s Global Gateway have tried to compete, neither has matched Beijing’s consistency or scale, often bogged down by fragmented execution or geopolitical caution.

According to the latest figures, China has committed over $679 billion in global infrastructure financing under the Belt and Road Initiative, dwarfing the $76 billion invested by the U.S. in the same period. Since 2013, Chinese firms have completed 369 overseas power projects, totaling 156 gigawatts of installed capacity — 70 percent in Asia and 15 percent in Africa.

These investments are quietly embedding China in the infrastructure and energy ecosystems of dozens of nations — in contrast to the reactive and fragmented posture of many Western countries. Initiatives like the U.S.-led Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment remain underpowered — in part because Washington continues to prioritize military alignment over sustained, civilian infrastructure engagement.  

And the expansion isn’t limited to coastlines. In May 2025, China and Brazil began exploratory talks on building a transcontinental railway to connect Chancay to Brazil’s interior — a move that would link Chinese-built Pacific infrastructure with Latin America’s Atlantic trade routes. It’s the kind of regional ambition that reflects how infrastructure — not military alignment — is increasingly defining influence in the Global South.

China’s newest approach is also more ambiguous. Several recent projects in the Pacific — purportedly civilian ports and airstrips — bear the hallmarks of dual-use design. Recent Chinese naval drills near Vanuatu, while drawing concern, also reflect a wider truth: Infrastructure often precedes presence — not necessarily conflict.

Meanwhile, China’s pivot to “small and beautiful” projects is proving just as consequential. In 2024 alone, Beijing signed 340 new Belt and Road deals worth $121.8 billion, a 31 percent jump from the prior year. These include smart logistics hubs in Central Asia, AI-powered customs systems in East Africa and green hydrogen pilot zones in the Middle East.

For Southeast Asia, where China is simultaneously a top trading partner and a digital infrastructure provider, the implications are particularly acute. The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are already pilot sites for AI-linked port systems and fiber-optic corridors.

China now controls between 40 percent and 100 percent of global processing capacity for critical minerals like lithium and rare earths —  the materials behind electric vehicles, satellites and next-gen defense systems. In many parts of the Global South, this isn’t about preference. It’s about presence. And right now, only one actor is consistently showing up.

Analysts have dubbed this the “invisible infrastructure race,” where quiet logistics corridors and AI-linked ports are redefining global leverage — an approach Beijing has deliberately honed as part of what its planners call “small but beautiful” connectivity.

This is more than a diplomatic chess match. Infrastructure is fast becoming the currency of geopolitical alignment. Roads and railways don’t just move goods — they mold futures. They determine whose software runs your grid, whose debt structures your economy, and whose version of governance fills the gaps.

For countries in the Global South — many facing overlapping crises of climate, capacity and capital — Beijing is offering more than a lifeline. It’s offering a blueprint.

At the heart of this ambition lies a new initiative: in July, China and Brazil signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a 4,500-kilometer transcontinental railway that would connect Chancay on the Pacific with Brazil’s Atlantic port of Ilhéus. The feasibility study — expected to take up to five years — reflects both the scale and strategic intent of Beijing’s infrastructure diplomacy. Notably, planners have acknowledged the Amazon’s ecological sensitivity, with proposals favoring southern routes that avoid deforestation and Indigenous lands.

Countering China’s infrastructure diplomacy isn’t about building bigger — it’s about building smarter. That means transparent financing and local capacity-building. Environmental integrity baked into every contract. And above all, projects that listen before they pave.

As China prepares for the October 2025 Belt and Road Forum, it is expected to double down on digital and green integration. With corridors like Chancay and potential rail links to Brazil’s Atlantic coast, the groundwork is being laid not just for trade, but for a redefinition of South–South alignment. The question for the West is whether it can offer an equally compelling alternative — one rooted not just in promises, but in presence.

Imran Khalid is a physician and has a master’s degree in international relations.