Container shipping rates for key global trade routes have soared this week, with U.S. and UK air strikes on Yemen stirring fears of a prolonged disruption to global trade in Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest routes.

Against the prevailing narrative of the The Belt and Road as a top-down strategy to spread China’s geopolitical influence, there is the BRI’s impact through its first decade as emanating «from the middle out and bottom up» via transport-enabled corridors traversing a large number of regions within and across national territories.