The Belt and Road initiative (BRI) is not only a transformative infrastructure investment program of the Chinese government, it has also developed to become a key pillar of Chinese foreign policy. As such, it is intended to open new trade routes throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, this goes hand in hand with a push for Chinese soft power across the globe. A key motive of the BRI, accordingly, is the attempt to tie countries closer to China. Whether this has been successful has been analyzed for individual countries or regions but as of yet, there is no conclusive cross-national evidence for an increase in Chinese influence following the start of the BRI. We rely on the voting similarities of China and different BRI and non-BRI members in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Voting records in the UNGA have frequently been used to assess the preference similarity of states in international relations. We leverage this information to test the impact an agreement between a state and China has had on preference similarity. We test our hypotheses utilizing difference-in-difference regression models and controlling for institutional and economic similarities. This research fills an important gap in the literature over the implications of Chinese engagement via the Belt and Road Initiative and has implications for the analysis of soft power and international investment agreements.