A Corpus-Based Analysis of Discourses on the Belt and Road Initiative: Corpora and the Belt and Road Initiative

Conceived to catalyse connectivity and economic cooperation across the span of Asia, Africa as well as Europe, China's colossal Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents, amongst other things, the country's efforts to step up to its role as a global economic leader.Despite China's projection of BRI as a benign and altruistic initiative to bring about global prosperity, in some quarters, a perception persists that 'BRI could be a Trojan horse for China-led regional development and military expansion'.Since its launch, the Belt and Road Initiative has drawn massive international attention (Niu and Relly 2021) and given rise to a plethora of polarized opinions and narratives on the nature of BRI (Afzaal 2019).Given that media and news coverage of BRI plays an influential role in shaping public opinions of the project, the volume under review-A Corpus-Based Analysis of Discourses on the Belt and Road Initiative-is a timely contribution to how CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) under the umbrella of BRI is perceived regionally and internationally.Aimed at providing China with a sea corridor through the Arabian Sea and linking it with the Middle East and Eurasia, CPEC serves as a key cornerstone of China's vision to revive the legendary Silk Route of Sino trade and create global connectivity via the implementation of BRI.A '$62 billion connectivity project envisioned to stretch from the western Chinese city of Kashgar to Pakistan's Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, located near Iran and Persian Gulf shipping lanes' (Wilson Center 2017), CPEC is a project that has attracted a swath of conflicting sentiments, depending on how the perceivers are positioned in relation to CPEC.From India's apprehensions that CPEC is an 'instrument of influence rather than an integrating development strategy' (Eriksson 2017), USA's wariness regarding the initiative from the geostrategic perspective and Pakistan's view of CPEC as being