On one hand, the BRI and other FDI programmes led by public and private interests have built from scratch or renewed multiple trading routes, equipping them with heavy industries, energy plants, ports, and bridges — facilitating daily life and raising new business opportunities for themselves, the countries of implementation, and third players by developing a level playing field and visibility in countries often neglected by key global players.

They have, on the other hand, among other issues, externalised the negative effects of some heavy industries by financing and operating entire ecosystems abroad, such as the Tsingshan Sulawesi Industrial Park, to name just one — but one that represented an unpredictable milestone for the stainless steel world, adding instability to the already unfair and unbalanced conditions of the sector.

Nonetheless, at a macro level, this Belt Road program of infrastructural investments gave China the opportunity to become a true player in global trade. By adding to its portfolio more than 150 countries involved in the Initiative or similar unlabelled projects, China has ensured, for itself and for others, access to new markets, new resources, new suppliers, and new customers.

The country is furthermore neighbouring a lot. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), signed in 2020 between Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and the ten countries of ASEAN — totalling around 30% of both the world population and global GDP — has the foundations to gradually eliminate customs duties on over 90% of goods. No doubt it will enhance regional trade, as was the case within the European Union.

Together with other international business and political approaches such as:

• the BRICS (Trade partnership of 2009 between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, recently joined in 2024 by Egypt, UAE, Ethiopia, and Iran, then Indonesia joining in 2025),
• the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), implemented in 2013, welcoming as members or observers Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cambodia, India and Pakistan, Iran, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey,
• the ongoing discussion with the EU to permanently solve unbalanced and subsidised capacities and other issues such as the WTO mutual obligations and responsibilities,
• the bilateral talks with all countries — with the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and the Americas.

China enrooted its blueprint and developed strong business and diplomatic ties year after year, project after project, taking the opportunity when accurate and available.

The outcome is that China now has a net global footprint and a pool of key partners in and outside its historical OECD business ties. The breadth of its portfolio logically strengthens the country’s ability to offset some losses by rerouting towards other markets.

The Climate Issue and Economy Is Embedded

Another path for growth is the intimate knowledge China has about the climate. Anyone who visited Beijing in 2015 remembers the thick polluting fog covering the north of the country. From 2018, China released the Blue Sky Plan. The government attempted to consolidate industrial overcapacities — with ambiguous success — by externalising some of its industrial negative impact as seen above. However, it deepened pollution control obligations and efficiency improvements across all end-use sectors (industry, appliances, buildings). The state of pollution in Beijing has greatly improved since then.

But the Chinese move on climate became very clear from 2020, when China — the world’s largest emitter of CO₂ in absolute terms also being the largest country by electricity demand — initiated a major shift in its energy mix, aiming to reach a peak in carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve neutrality by 2060.

While coal still accounts for nearly 50% of its energy production today, China has massively invested in LNG to offset coal and oil as a start, growing from one terminal in 2006 to more than 30 today. LNG is mainly supplied from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Qatar, promoting long-term contracts.