The Green Superpower: How China's Belt and Road Infrastructure Resets the Standard for International Climate Law

Abstract

This article critically examines China’s claim that the Green Belt and Road Initiative (Green BRI) is redefining global climate governance by exporting higher environmental standards through transnational infrastructure finance. While Beijing portrays the Green BRI as a transformative model capable of elevating global sustainability norms, the paper argues that existing scholarship has overstated its legal and empirical impact. Through an analysis of the initiative’s soft-law architecture, the governance mechanisms of Chinese policy banks and state-owned enterprises, and the gap between narrative ambition and project-level evidence, the study identifies three structural deficiencies: a legal mechanism gap, a governance gap, and an accountability gap. First, Green BRI instruments overwhelmingly rely on non-binding guidelines rather than enforceable obligations, limiting their ability to function as de facto climate standards. Second, the absence of extraterritorial oversight, inconsistent data reporting, and limited transparency impede meaningful evaluation of environmental outcomes. Third, the coexistence of Green BRI norms with entrenched investor protections under international investment law creates legal friction without offering reliable adjudicatory pathways for climate-related disputes. The article concludes that, despite its normative aspirations, the Green BRI currently constitutes a flexible and strategically ambivalent framework rather than a functional reset of international climate law.