the government and stateowned enterprises investing vast sums outside china xi is encouraging chinese companies to channel their spending into domestic projects that will directly benefit the economy and incidentally the popularity of his regimebusinesses arent exactly defying xi but theyve adjusted their plans to fit his with the belt and road project enshrined in the communist partys constitution as of last year chinese companies are using it to help them navigate xis restrictions on foreign investment and capital outflows many are sheltering their overseas projects under the umbrella of xis pet project to get the states blessing belt and road says michael every head of financial markets research for rabobank group in hong kong is a political special sauce if you drizzle it on anything it tastes betterat first the sauce whetted the appetites of many developing countries in asia and africa as the notion of a modern silk road gained traction belt and road meandered into places that had never had any connection with ancient caravans this year it reached south america the caribbean and even the arctic in june it rocketed into space beijing announced that belt and roadparticipating countries will be among the first in line to plug into chinas new satellitenavigation servicesmost of the proposed plans are infrastructurebased such as a new deepsea port in myanmar and power lines in the maldives but almost any overseas investment gets tagged as being part of the initiative a freight train carrying chinese sunflower seeds to tehran a new courthouse in papua new guinea an irrigation system in the philippinesthe growing web of trade routes including the silk road economic belt and the maritime silk road initiative now extends into at least 76 countries mostly developing nations in asia africa and latin america together with a handful of countries on the eastern edge of europe with most global trade moving by sea its no surprise that many of the first places to lock up major chinese investments were ports along with pipelines and other transport links that connect shipping to marketschinas plans to build or rebuild dozens of seaports especially around the indian ocean have sounded alarm bells in washington and new delhi how many of those docks will end up hosting chinese warships just as mighty navies and global networks of military bases helped support trading empires for britain in the 19th century and the us in the 20th century so china is building a fleet of submarines aircraft carriers and warships that will rival us powerchina has said it has no intention of using belt and road to exert undue political or military influence and that the initiative is designed only to enhance economic and cultural understanding between nations in pursuing the belt and road initiative xi said in 2015 we should focus on the fundamental issue of development release the growth potential of various countries and achieve economic integrationif thats the case xi will need to change the perceptions of people who live along