The ‘One Belt, One Road’(OBOR)initiative, proposed in 2013, marks China’s interest in reshaping regional institutions that may impact global power distribution. With an emphasis on the process of institutional reshaping linking to competition over global power, this paper will first summarize the relationship between international institutions building and hegemonic status of leadership in part one, followed by introduction to the background of China’s OBOR initiative in part two, China’s changing role in regard to the redistribution of global power in part three, and institutions-related competition between China and the U.S. This paper concludes that China’s OBOR initiative has triggered a soft hegemonic competition that entangles global institutional leadership.