Old Road New Connections: China Builds a Different World

China, nearly half a century after economic transformation and development, is changing not just itself, but the world around it. The BRI (Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure and economic development program initiated by the Chinese government) promises investments in countries along the ancient overland trading routes between China and the West, with maritime arcs around Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian peninsula, down the eastern coast of Africa and through the Mediterranean. These distinctive images from 21 countries participating in China’s BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) are taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Liu Heung Shing, described by Newsweek as “the Henri Cartier-Bresson of China”. Unfolding across Asia, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, the book covers a distance of over 267,000 kilometers, documented from early 2023 to late 2025. A compelling new perspective on the reality of China today.