Chinese president Xi Jinping took ownership of the idea of a new Silk Road in a speech at the Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013.
Ten years on, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) continues to puzzle many. Almost vague by design, it has easily lent itself to different interpretations, many of which have been heavily spun to serve either side of the China–USA geopolitical split. Igor Rogelja, a lecturer in global politics at University College London, and Konstantinos Tsimonis, a lecturer in Chinese Society at King’s College in London, felt that these differing interpretations fail to see the BRI for what it is. Bridging this disconnect between perception and reality thus became the raison d’etre of the book Belt and Road — The First Decade.
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“We saw that there was a substantial discrepancy between the way the BRI was talked about and discussed in public discourse, and what we were finding on the ground,” says Mr Tsimonis.
We saw that there was a substantial discrepancy between the way the BRI was talked about and discussed in public discourse, and what we were finding on the ground.
The authors also questioned Beijing’s hype around the BRI, or the idea that it was a totally new and revolutionary initiative spearheaded by Mr Xi.
“The BRI was built out of projects that had been around long before Xi Jinping came to power [in 2012],” notes Mr Rogelja.
China has been trying to encourage the internationalisation of its state-owned enterprises since the late 1990s with initiatives such as the ‘Going Out’ strategy. In this perspective, the BRI only provided a new, fresher platform binding together the outbound projects that had originated in these earlier initiatives.
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Here the authors come to a compelling conclusion: by attaching a strategic outlook to an existing set of outbound projects, Mr Xi ended up undermining the whole initiative, instead of making it stronger.
“The BRI didn’t attract attention per se, but [it gained attention during] several policy shifts that we saw around the time [Mr] Xi rose to power,” Mr Tsimonis argues.
“At the same time that China militarised the South China Sea … became more assertive in its rhetoric towards Japan and Taiwan … and suppressed any kind of freedom of speech that existed in China, it also launched this project. In this way, the BRI becomes part of what seems to be the end of a more modest approach to China's position in the world.
“It suddenly becomes part of a broader agenda of hegemony.”
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This is consistent with the perception trajectory of the BRI and Chinese outbound investment as a whole in the past decade. Initially, developing countries in the global south were keen to jump on the BRI as they saw it as an alternative to traditional channels of Western development finance. When the initiative signed up countries the world over, including in the West, and some of its mega projects showed poor governance and economic acumen, it started to raise eyebrows. With the deepening of the China–US feud, initial concerns turned into fears of Chinese neo-colonialism. Another misperception, the authors argue.
“We question that the BRI’s unstated agenda is hegemony,” Mr Rogelja says. “We proved that by looking at its origins, its effectiveness, the way it’s positioned within the political ecosystem of China, and it is not positioned that high.
We question that the BRI’s unstated agenda is hegemony.
“Of course, in some ways it is an expression of the goals, desires, as well as fears of China’s state capitalism, but, but at the same time, we doubt that it was designed as a tool of hegemony. And even if it was … it’s not really doing such a great job.”
Belt and Road — The First Decade it is a great read for anyone looking for a balanced perspective on the BRI and its political motives. It will not be the last book on the subject, but it debunks a lot of myths and provides valuable analysis to understand the initiative’s first ten years, as well as its next ten.
This article first appeared in the April/May 2023 print edition of fDi Intelligence.