Quick Thread. You've heard of China's "Belt and Road" but do you know what it is? Are you too embarrassed to ask you're friends? Are they too embarrassed to tell you they don't know either?
You're about to become a brown belt in it. Lets begin...
In 2013, President Xi....

...announced the “Silk Road Economic Belt” while visiting Kazakhstan.
The next month, while in Indonesia he announced the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”
The total effort is called collectively the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or
One Belt One Road

BRI = 64 countries within Eurasia and Africa = +/- 62% of the world
population & +/- 30% of global GDP.

Infrastructure dev is the foundation, but its much more and it will all radiate outwards from China = policy, trade, economic support and human capital mobility.

There are three international passageways:
1. China to Europe through Central Asia & Russia
2. China to Middle East through Central Asia
3. China to Southeast Asia & South Asia.

and there are six economic corridors are:
1. China-Mongolia-Russia
2. New Eurasian Land Bridge
3. China-Central Asia-West Asia
4. China-Indochina Peninsular
5. China-Pakistan
6. Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar

The BRI will have many financial features, these are crucial, lets discuss...
There will be a bilateral currency swap arrangement, this is meant to (presumably, its all the sales pitch) reduce exchange rate risk and transaction costs for trade and investment.

China has lost its low-cost competitiveness, it is moving up the world’s manufacturing chain and relocating ITS labor intensive industries to countries with cheaper wages...and these are also good clients for Chinese high-speed rail, nuclear power plants, etc

This will also, China hopes, spur growth in China’s rustbelt and resolve their excess manufacturing capacity. It essentially migrates surplus factories.excess products.

And bigly China gain is it exports China’s technological (and engineering (ugh) STANDARDS

China has signed 21 "bilateral currency swap agreements"
Offshore Renminbi bonds are the preferred settlement of the massive infrastructure projects (bridges, ports, rail, waterways, etc)

Why is this important you may, or may not be asking...
What this does is it effectively pushes the offshore Yuan/Renminbi as the "currency of record" making it perhaps the world's most vital currency, challenging the U.S dollar

In 2015 China launched the "Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank" (AIIB),this is intended providing financing for other countries multilateral development banks.
As of now it has about 80 members and is holding about $100 billion, 30 billion of that is what China has given it

The U.S has opposed the AIIB, Why? Well, there is legit many good reasons. On is that China's currency and the way in manipulates it creates volatility and enormous world systemic risk (as it affects banking, etc)
/end

Now go out and beat up some BRI white belts