The initiative of building the 21st Century MSR was proposed by Xi Jinping during his visit to Indonesia in October 2013 in order to deepen economic and maritime links. The MSR begins in Fuzhou in Southeast China’s Fujian province and heads south into the ASEAN nations, crosses Malacca Strait and turns west to countries along the Indian Ocean before meeting the land based Silk Road in Venice via the Red Sea and Mediterranean. Under the ambit of MSR, China plans to build hard and soft infrastructure from Indo-Pacific to
Africa, including transport, energy, water management, communication, earth monitoring, economic and social infrastructure. The B&R Initiative advocates policy communication, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, monetary circulation, and people to people relations. Some scholars have added a sixth element to it – interconnected network or the internet silk road thus making the notion as One Belt Two Roads.