Belt and Road Initiative and China's Economic Challenges

The relevance of the research topic is due to the high importance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for increasing the presence of China in the markets of the countries of the New Silk Road. The topic becomes more relevant due to the ambiguous results of the BRI, although it was launched in 2013. On the one hand, the effect for China is growing. On the other hand, the effect for the participating countries has not yet reached the level initially declared. The chapter aims to identify the main challenges and advantages of the BRI based on the involvement of countries and their markets in the trade and economic system formed by China. The research novelty lies in studying the economic goals and objectives of the People's Republic of China (PRC) under the BRI and the possibilities of using the trade and economic system created by the PRC for developing the PRC and the BRI member countries. The authors found that the initiative is designed to better integrate the economy of China at the regional and global level, promote the socio-economic progress of the less developed western territories of the country and stabilize foreign trade and domestic socio-economic processes in conditions of global instability. The authors justify that this initiative, uniting more than 80 countries in Asia, Africa and Oceania, will strengthen China's role in the world economy and trade, form a specific international trade and economic platform under the leadership of China and provide the country a leading position in at least three parts of the world. The authors use traditional economic research methods, such as scientific abstraction, deduction, analysis and synthesis. Additionally, the authors use the method of visualization based on the application of the statistical method.