News Analysis China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a “debt trap” and “data trap,” warned British MI6 chief, Richard Moore. Eight years in, the BRI is littered with half-built bridges, unfinished projects, overbudget railways, roads to nowhere, lots of debt, and angry people. “The ancient silk routes embody the spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit,” said Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the opening of the Belt and Road Forum in May 2017. At no point did Xi mention the benefits that the multibillion-dollar BRI would bring to the Chinese people, as well as establishing a Chinese-led world order, displacing the United States as the predominant global power, gaining access to natural resources, controlling other countries through debt traps, buying friends, and establishing a network of overseas military bases to secure the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) hegemonic ambitions. Britain’s MI6 chief called China …