Debt Traps or Foreign Investments? Framing the BRI Debate throughout the Montenegro “Highway to Nowhere” Case Study

A 165 kilometers motorway cutting vertically the Montenegrin State. That’s the size of the most important infrastructure project in the  history of the country, financed under the umbrella of the Chinese Belt and  Road Initiative, being one of the prominent examples of the rising engage ment of Beijing in the Western Balkan (or in general Eastern Europe) region.  Taking the Montenegrin case study, this paper tries to frame the general  polarized debate around the Chinese BRI projects, pictured as a threatening  “debt trap” by the majority of the western public opinion or as a precious  development and financial instrument by the Chinese counterpart. This  study thus aims to develop a set of reflections on the perception of the Belt  and Road Initiative (BRI) as an economic and geopolitical instrument of the  Chinese government, highlighting the main positions that have emerged  in the international debate in recent years. For this reason, the case study  of the Montenegrin highway project between the cities of Bar and Boljare,  often referred to as the “highway to nowhere,” serves as a compelling ex ample of how this debate has unfolded, as Montenegro represents a politically strategic context for both Europe and China, becoming the focal  point for the clash of their narratives.