319 Road

Pippa Malmgren is a best-selling author, economist and advisor to both The White House and Downing Street! She believes that China”s “one belt, one road” project is the most important project happening anywhere in the world right now and describes it as the biggest infrastructure project in modern history. The one belt is actually the original silk road from China, moving west all the way through central Asia, the middle east and into Western Europe. The one road is the maritime link, from China through South East Asia, past India into the middle east and east Africa. The one circle is the extra route recently added which will encompass the one belt one road within it, going through the artic circle and down, to Rotterdam, then going south where China have invested in widening the Suez Canal.

Pippa talks about the global significance of this project and how it could be something that is of great historical significance, linking the global economy in an even more complex fashion and being a catalyst for the exchange of goods, people, ideas and cultural norms, including from places which have previously been isolated from the world.

The way to say “road” in Chinese is 路. The character shows the foot radical on the left and the character for “each” on the right, which gives the idea of walking. If you add the character for “horse” 馬/马 in front of this, then you get 馬路/马路, “horse road” which is still used today to describe a road which cars can drive on.