Pakistan’s deep-sea port Gwadar, which the Chinese built and are now operating under a 40-year agreement, is a key part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The U.S. and India are looking at the Chinese initiative with skepticism, believing that the twin initiatives are meant more to secure China’s geo-strategic aims.

Africa pins high hopes on the Belt and Road Initiative to promote African industrialization and infrastructure construction, and to turn the 21st century into an era of African development. The priorities of Washington and Beijing could be in concert here, giving the US and China historic roles to play.

Behind all the hype surrounding China’s changing global role in general, and the One Belt One Road concept and the BRI in particular, lie important and unanswered questions about America’s longer-term strategy for reshaping its relations with China and Asia more broadly.

At a press conference on March 30, Chinese spokesperson Lu Kang announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping would visit U.S. President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida from April 6-7.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the OBOR initiative is the increased understanding and tolerance of people of different backgrounds and the recognition of the need to collaborate peacefully with each other, in order to achieve the win-win objective.

China is not the only Asian country looking to the ancient Silk Road as a path to greater economic and political influence. Both Japan and South Korea have their own, albeit more modest, versions of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. While Seoul and Beijing have expressed public interest in collaborating along the Silk Road, Tokyo remains silent. Will the BRI be a driver for greater integration in Northeast Asia, or will these three nations prefer to follow their own paths eastward?

The importance of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is clear in regards to its place in economic and foreign policy. How it fits into U.S.-China relations is less obvious. While BRI could contribute to competition between the U.S. and China, it could also be used to enhance cooperation—an initiative that must be engaged and shaped with conscious efforts.

The economic relationship should have evolved with China and U.S. economies’ “New Normal”, but a variety of fears are in the way. The U.S. would like to decrease its reliance on consumption as the engine of growth, relying more on domestic investment and exports. China seeks more consumer spending, and less reliance on domestic investment and exports. Those goals are highly complementary and mutually reinforcing, creating opportunities that should not be missed.

Lucio Blanco Pitlo III compares China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative with the U.S.'s Rebalance to Asia, ultimately advising that for the U.S. to be seen as not reacting to China's growing regional influence, it would need a better appreciation of the security needs, growing aspirations, and economic demands of rising powers.

China now seeks to export its excess industrial capacity as a means to cope with its economic troubles. The problem is that China is trying to export its way out a local crisis caused in large part by a global glut of commodities. Whatever the case, we should expect Chinese foreign investment to continue to grow, spurring a commensurate rise in its political influence.