GEB 1305

China and the World

Lecture 12

Mainland China and Modern Societies

in the World:

Connectivity to Eurasian Countries –

the Belt and Road Initiative

1
Introduction
• Xi Jinping’s assumption of leadership in 2012
• Xi immediately launched a prolonged campaign against corruption in the Party, which
strengthened his personal leadership by purging potential opponents and increasing his
popularity.

• He expanded the number of the Party Leading Small Groups (領導小組), which set the full range
of policy agendas for the Politburo—and Xi chaired all of them, giving rise to the quip that he was
“Chairman of Everything.”

• He elevated the governing role of the Party by enhancing the leadership roles of Party cells in
organizations throughout China, including all enterprises (whether state-owned, private, or even
foreign-owned). 2
Introduction
• The armed forces were also brought under his tight control, with numerous senior

generals, high-ranking officers, and commanders purged on the grounds of corruption.

• From the outset Xi Jinping assumed command of all the dimensions of China’s foreign

relations—including strategy, policymaking, diplomacy, economics, trade, military,

ideology, propaganda, and so on.

• It was becoming increasingly important that policy and actions be subject to a single

authority.
3
The Chinese Dream

• On November 29, 2012, Xi announced to his colleagues the goal of realizing “the Chinese

Dream” of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—the slogan used by Chinese

nationalists including previous communist leaders for more than 100 years.

• Xi pointed to the “twin centenaries” (2021 of the founding of the Party and 2049 of the

founding of the PRC) as targets for achieving particular levels of economic and social

success.
4
The Chinese Dream

• By May 2017, Xi Jinping summarized his (or what he presented as China’s) aspirations for a

new international order:

“We should foster a new type of international relations featuring ‘win-win cooperation,’

and we should forge a partnership of dialogue with no confrontation, and a partnership

of friendship rather than alliance. All countries should respect each other’s sovereignty,

dignity and territorial integrity; respect each other’s development path and its social

systems, and respect each other’s core interests and major concerns. . . . What we hope

to create is a big family of harmonious coexistence.”

5
The Chinese Dream

• It should be noted that Xi’s presentation constituted, in effect, a rejection of the basis for

the American strategic position in Asia.

• He explicitly rejected alliances, which have been central to the American provision of the

public goods of security, trade, and other economic exchanges in the Asia-Pacific, and

from which all member states have benefited (none more than China).

• By demanding “respect” for “core interests,” Xi also required all other states contesting

China’s claims to sovereignty to cede to China’s asserted sovereign control.

6
Belt and Road Initiative

• Perhaps the most significant of Xi Jinping’s innovation in foreign relations has been his

project of “One Belt, One Road”, or as it has come to be called, his “Belt and Road

Initiative” (BRI), first announced in 2013.

• It has been presented as the “New Silk Road”

• It is designed to establish extensive connections between China and the rest of the world

by a series of road, rail, and sea links across Asia to Europe, including the Middle East and

Africa.
7
Belt and Road Initiative

• Proposes developing the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with
the intention of promoting economic cooperation among countries along the proposed
routes.

• The Initiative has been designed to enhance the orderly free-flow of economic factors and
the efficient allocation of resources.

• It is also intended to further market integration and create a regional economic

cooperation framework of benefit to all.

8
Belt and Road Initiative – Conceptual Framework
BRI aims to connect Asia, Europe and Africa via:

• The Silk Road Economic Belt

It focusses on linking China to Europe through Central Asia and Russia; connecting China with the

Middle East through Central Asia; and bringing together China and Southeast Asia, South Asia and

the Indian Ocean.

• The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road

It focusses on using Chinese coastal ports to: link China with Europe through the South China Sea

and Indian Ocean; and connect China with the South Pacific Ocean through the South China Sea.
9
Belt and
Road
Initiative –
Conceptual
Framework

10
Belt and Road Initiative – Key Areas of Co-operation

1. Policy Co-ordination
Countries along the belt and road will, via consultation on an equal footing, jointly formulate
development plans and measures for advancing cross-national or regional cooperation and
resolving problems arising from cooperation through consultation.

2. Facilities Connectivity
Efforts will be made to advance the construction of port infrastructure facilities and clearing land-
water intermodal transport passages, aiming to establish an infrastructure network connecting
various Asian sub-regions with other parts of Asia, Europe and Africa.

3. Facilitate Unimpeded Trade

Steps will be taken to resolve investment and trade facilitation issues, reduce investment and trade
barriers and promote regional economic integration. 11
Belt and Road Initiative – Key Areas of Co-operation

4. Financial Integration

Actions will be taken to expand the scope of local currency settlement and currency

exchange in trade and investment between countries along the route, deepen

multilateral and bilateral financial cooperation and enhance the ability of managing

financial risks through regional arrangements.

5. People-to-people Bonds
Efforts will be made to promote exchanges and dialogues between different cultures to

form the basis for the advancement of regional cooperation.

12
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success
• In the five years since the BRI came into operation it has had mixed success.

• China established the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), with current

membership of about sixty states.

• BRI has enjoyed more success in landlocked Central Asia, where its infrastructure capabilities

have no competition and projects completed such as the railroads in Uzbekistan and another

linking Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Iran, in addition to the Khorgos dry port on the China-

Kazakh border have been well regarded.

13
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success
• Some of the less developed and smaller countries have found themselves over-indebted to
China for projects that have turned out to be unviable economically, leaving the countries in
“debt traps.”

• Sri Lanka became the best-known example when it was forced to lease land and port facilities to
China for ninety-nine years to pay for a $1 billion debt and yet more unpayable debts remain.

• Corruption has been a major and abiding problem.

• The prime minister of Malaysia, the veteran Mahathir Mohammed, visited Beijing in August 2018
and canceled two rail projects valued at $20 billion, warning the Chinese government against a
“new form of colonialism”
14
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success

• The BRI has tarnished China’s reputation as a reliable partner due to the

opaqueness of the negotiations for the various projects, the constant suspicion

of corruption surrounding them, the concern that they are primarily focused on

serving Chinese interests (some of which are regarded as strategic and lacking in

economic merit), and, finally, that a good number of them result in debt traps

for the recipient country.

15
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success
• An emerging problem is that they can implicate China in rivalries and complex regional
problems that threaten the Chinese capacity to handle them.

• Pakistan, “the all-weather friend,” is a prime example. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
originally valued at $62 billion has been hailed as one of the most important and successful
projects of the BRI. But the election of a new prime minister, Imran Khan, brought to the fore
the seriousness of Pakistan’s low foreign reserves. The new government reached agreement
with the IMF for a loan subject to onerous conditions. Khan also secured a $6 billion loan from
Saudi Arabia and although the Chinese agreed to extend a loan in principle, they insisted on
further negotiations.
16
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success

• China had great expectations for the rebuilt Gwadar Port near the entrance to the
Persian Gulf, to which they had constructed a road link from Xinjiang. But in 2018,
as their Gwadar project neared completion, China’s leaders found that they were in
danger of becoming caught up in the great Middle East divide between Saudi Arabia
and Iran.

• Xi Jinping was finding that his BRI was leading new foreign policy conundrums he
could not have envisioned.
17
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success

• Meanwhile the major powers of Asia, Japan, India, and Australia regard the

whole enterprise with suspicion as designed to establish China’s dominance

of the trade of the Asian region and beyond.

• Even though Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, agreed in his path-breaking

visit to Beijing in October 2018 to participate in some BRI projects, it remains

to be seen whether and how such joint activities would take place.
18
Belt and Road Initiative – Mixed Success
• Japan’s key ally, the United States, has been opposed to the BRI since its inception an

opposition that has intensified under the Trump’s administration, which perceives the BRI

as designed to establish Chinese control over Asian countries and to gain strategic

dominance over the vast Eurasian landmass and beyond from which America would be

excluded.

• It is increasingly regarded in Washington as part of a broader Chinese design, to undermine

democracies and to establish an international order more to the liking of its own and other

dictatorships. 19
References

• Yahuda, M. (2020) “China’s Relations with Asia”. In Shambaugh, D. L.

(eds) China and the World. New York : Oxford University Press.

• Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

https://research.hktdc.com/en/article/MzYzMDAyOTg5

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