China has a different vision of globalisation

Once upon a time, everyone assumed that there was a single phenomenon called globalisation, whereby cross-border flows of financial capital drove innovation, industrialisation, development, and trade, writes Harold James.

But Chinese president Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) advances an alternative vision of globalisation, based on an integrated system of physical infrastructure. The material world of ships and trains will replace the immaterial world of financialisation.