By Gordon French, Head of Global Banking and Markets, Asia Pacific, HSBC Perhaps it’s inevitable that interest in China’s Belt and Road Initiative tends to revolve around the railway lines, ports and highways that will be constructed in its name. These are the most visible manifestations of the “Belt and Road,” and they evoke beguiling images of the ancient land and sea routes along which silk was once transported from Xi’An to St Petersburg, or tea from Guangzhou to Rotterdam.