China's President says the country's multibillion dollar plan to build a modern-day Silk Road will be the "project of the century".

The "Belt and Road initiative" - as it is slightly awkwardly titled - is intended to recreate the trading routes of old overland and sea through central Asia, to Europe and beyond, with massive investment in infrastructure along the way.

The ambitious plans span at least 65 countries, including more than 60% of the world's population, and 30% of global GDP.

The estimated $900bn (£698bn) cost would make it one of the most expensive development projects ever attempted, and many times the size of the US Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the Second World War.

As Xi Jinping hosted leaders at a summit to showcase the project in Beijing, Sky News travelled to the China-Kazakhstan border - to a remote frontier region now at the heart of China's new Silk Road plans.


Image: Chinese President Xi Jinping and delegates attending the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing

Horgos is close to what's known as the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility - the furthest point from an ocean on the planet.

Caravans of merchants trekked past its rugged mountain peaks more than a thousand years ago, at the height of China's global power, along the old Silk Road to the west.

But it had long since been forgotten, and as recently as five years ago there was almost nothing here, just a small village on the dusty steppes.

Now vast new infrastructure is going up at speed - with a cavernous new railway station, high-rise apartment blocks, and the imposing concrete "Horgos Gateway" - that will become the new border crossing to Kazakhstan and central Asia.

There is a new "dry port" - intended as a key logistics hub for road and rail cargo, alongside a sprawling new free trade zone.

Guo Jianbin, Director of the Administration Committee of the Horgos Development Zone, told us he had big dreams for the city - that it could be the next Shenzhen or Shanghai.

Image: Chancellor Philip Hammond was among those attending the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing

"In 2014, the Horgos government incomes were very low," Mr Guo explained. The project was first announced by President Xi in late 2013.

"But in 2015, government incomes grew by 65%, and that increased 278% in 2016. One Belt One Road brings money to local people and gives them a better life."

The logic behind the project is that a lack of infrastructure in the region's developing countries is holding back trade - so invest in new road and rail links, and improved facilities, and the volume of trade flow will follow.

As we watched, a huge cargo train lumbered past on its way from China to Europe - the very image of the modern Silk Road the Chinese government wants to project.

The official propaganda talks of "win-win" co-operation, and building a "community of common destiny" - but it would be naive to think that is all that is going on here. This project is as much about politics as it is about economics.

Image: Horgos will be a key hub in the Silk Road project

Ethan Cramer-Flood, Associate Director of The Conference Board's China Centre, explained the initiative was driven primarily by challenges in China's domestic economy, and its broader, geopolitical ambitions.

"I'm referring specifically to the massive amount of overcapacity that exists within Chinese industry such as steel, cement and engineering," he said.

"And these massive state-owned enterprises that have the capacity in the workforce to do these kind of projects, but don't have as much to do any more. Then of course the diplomatic goals. This is absolutely, first and foremost, a soft power initiative.

"Clearly the leadership in Beijing envisions the One Belt One Road project as being maybe the most significant part of Xi Jinping's 'China Dream' - and vision of supporting the emergence of China onto the global stage as the next great superpower."

With the exception of Italy, no heads of state from the G7 group of leading economies are attending the Beijing summit, and there is scepticism about China's intentions in some quarters.

Image: Horgos will also have a new free trade zone

An editorial in the Times of India described it as "little more than a colonial enterprise [that would leave] debt and broken communities in its wake."

And there are other issues the Chinese government would rather not focus on.

In Xinjiang, the region where the new Horgos project is located, we travelled through armed checkpoints, and heavy security. The authorities say they're fighting violent separatists fuelled by global Islamist extremism.

Human rights groups accuse them of crushing the religious freedoms of the region's Uighur Muslims, with recent orders including a ban on "abnormal beards" and the "naming of children to exaggerate religious fervour" with the list thought to include Mecca and Muhammed.

Image: The dry port in Horgos is intended to become a key logistics hub for road and rail cargo

Sky News was accompanied by government-appointed guides throughout our time in the region.

China's state news agency, Xinhua, has rounded on critics of the Silk Road strategy as "naysayers" who "circle like buzzards"- insisting the country has "no intention to control or threaten any other nation."

Perhaps tellingly, the commentary added that the summit was "not an occasion to assert a new hegemony, but an opportunity to bring an old one to an end".

At a time when the United States under Donald Trump is perceived to be pursuing a more isolationist, "America First" policy, there is little doubt who those comments were aimed at.