Maritime Silk Road

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (21世纪海上丝绸之路) was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in a speech to the Indonesian Parliament in October 2013, complementing the overland "Silk Road Economic Belt" he had unveiled in Kazakhstan weeks earlier. Together they form the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China's flagship foreign economic strategy.

The maritime component focuses on financing and constructing ports, shipping lanes, logistics parks, and coastal special economic zones along routes connecting the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean. Major projects associated with it include:

• Gwadar Port in Pakistan, developed under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor
• Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, leased to a Chinese state firm for 99 years in 2017 after debt restructuring
• Piraeus Port in Greece, where COSCO acquired a majority stake in 2016
• Kyaukpyu deep-sea port in Myanmar
• Terminal investments in Djibouti, alongside China's first overseas military base opened there in 2017

Financing typically flows through the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), founded in 2016. The Silk Road Fund, established in 2014 with $40 billion in initial capital, also backs projects.

Critics, including officials in Washington, New Delhi, Tokyo, and Brussels, argue the Maritime Silk Road advances strategic goals beyond commerce: securing sea lines of communication, expanding naval access, and creating economic dependencies sometimes labeled "debt-trap diplomacy" — a framing contested by some academic studies. Counter-initiatives include the EU's Global Gateway (2021), the US-led Build Back Better World/PGII (2021–2022), and Japan's Partnership for Quality Infrastructure. India has emphasized its own connectivity projects and, with Quad partners, the Indo-Pacific concept partly as a strategic response.