Associate Professor Jane Golley is an economist and Acting Director at the Australian Centre on China in the World, The Australian National University. She is co-editor of the China Story Yearbook 2017: Prosperity, which was launched this week and is available for free download at https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/china-story-yearbook. Her own chapter in the book is entitled ‘The Belt and Road Initiative: How to win friends and influence people’, and builds on some of the themes discussed here.