The Chinese initiative «One Belt, One Road» has a growing influence on the development of the global economy. As it progresses, it carries both new opportunities, risks, and challenges for concrete regions and countries. On this background, «One Belt, One Road» begins to encounter ambiguous perception and often with the opposition. This article is devoted to the analysis of this tangle of problems. The authors identify the main economic prerequisites for its occurrence; define economic and political goals, which can be achieved by China within its implementation, and also describe the main geographical directions of the initiative's development. It's noted that China began to experience competitive pressure from the USA and the EU, mainly in the form of countering Chinese economic expansion, as well as the anti-Chinese media campaign. Critical arguments for the Chinese initiative, as well as arguments in its favor, are presented and explored in the paper. Basing on the analysis of “pros” and “cons”, the authors come to the conclusion that the nature of the «One belt, One Road» is likely to be changed towards greater consideration of the interests of the hosting countries.