Ten years of China’s Belt and Road: what has $1tn achieved?

“When you give roses to others, their fragrance lingers on your hand,” Xi Jinping told guests at the 10th anniversary celebration of his Belt and Road Initiative in Beijing last week. “Helping others is also helping oneself.”

Even as China’s president played the exuberant host, welcoming world leaders from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Indonesia’s Joko Widodo at the Great Hall of the People, an undercurrent of geopolitical animosity directed at the US was evident.