For years, China's leadership followed the guidance of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged the country to "hide our capacities ... maintain a low profile and never claim leadership." Last weekend marked the end of that era as President Xi Jinping hosted an international gathering that sought to sell Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR), a multitrillion dollar regional infrastructure initiative. Xi's "project of the century" has many purposes, not least of which is assertion of China's leading role in Asia and beyond, a bid to fill a vacuum that is emerging in the wake of the Trump administration's "America First" approach.

Economists and experts reckon that there is a $5 trillion shortfall in infrastructure — roads, ports, railways and power facilities that provide the very foundation of economic development — in Asia and its periphery. China's leaders see that gap as an opportunity — a way to make friends, spur demand for Chinese goods and services, and expand Beijing's influence.

To do so, Chinese planners and strategists have drawn on age-old iconography, that of the Silk Road, and fashioned a modern construct around it, one that will extend past Central Asia and the Indian Ocean and extend all the way to Europe. The Silk Road Economic Belt aims to re-create and expand those land-based trading routes; the 21 Maritime Silk Road does the same for maritime routes. Together, they constitute the OBOR initiative and Xi invited the leaders of countries that would receive OBOR funds and those who would donate to it.