Exploring a new development direction of the Belt and Road Initiative in the transitional period towards the post-COVID-19 era

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, its impacts have been envisaged in multi-dimensional ways, including global supply chains, international logistics, and transportation. Owing to a series of virus variants since 2020, several Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects have been halted along the Belt and Road (B&R), and their implementation progress has been affected. In addition, China, which initiated the BRI in 2013, has been facing challenges which are caused by its economic, socio-demographic, and international political structural changes. Moreover, growing conflicts and tensions in international trade and politics, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, China-US trade conflicts, foreign companies’ reshoring the production lines from China, and diplomatic disputes between China and Australia, have been interwoven with the impacts of COVID-19 on the supply chains, international trade, and transportation in the world. Having considered the above, this study explores a new research-driven approach to reignite the BRI momentum in the transitional period towards the post-COVID-19 era from a Chinese economic perspective. In doing so, this paper proposes nine research agendas, such as the optimization network of transportation and logistics distribution centers (LDCs) along the B&R, priority development and performance of LDCs, greening the B&R with green shipping corridors, revisiting port devolution continuum, humanitarian logistics in association with COVID-19, security and risk analysis of China’s energy supply chains, and export of the 6th Generation Ports (6GP) model with smart ports to major container ports along the port supply chains. Each research agenda is addressed with its motivation, significance, and applicable and representative methods.