In September 2013, in Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ (SREB), an ambitious infrastructure initiative. A year later, while on a visit to Indonesia, he announced another connectivity initiative ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, comprising mainly a sea route connecting China’s east coast ports to Europe via South-East Asia, South Asia and East Africa. Together, these two were called ‘yi dai yi lu’ in Mandarin, the literal translation of which is ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR).