Belt and Road Initiative: Defining China's Grand Strategy and the Future World Order

Abstract

The current U.S.-China relationship involves grand strategic rivalry. China launched its grand strategy of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, connecting 65 countries along the Asia Pacific through China-led infrastructure initiatives. The BRI contends two objectives. One is a modernization objective for regional countries to “jump onto China’s economic bandwagon.” The other is a “Common Destiny” objective to foster a China-led regional community. This thesis agrees with the probable success of the first objective, but challenges on the formation of the second by developing a political philosophical argument in understanding China's view of common destiny and world community. The thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter 1 gives a comprehensive profile of China’s BRI. Chapter 2 analyzes its geostrategic significance. Chapter 3 introduces a political economic view of the forthcoming of China’s BRI. Chapter 4 analyzes empirically the causality between modernization and democratization. If it were true that there were a positive causal relationship, BRI countries would turn towards democracy as they modernize. Empirical data does not show such causal significance. Therefore, the two-pronged BRI objective could be inherently accommodating. Chapter 5 defines Xi’s BRI “Common Destiny.” This common destiny is illuminated by nationalism, authoritarian capitalism and civil order, in contrast to democracy, free market capitalism and civil liberty of the liberal West. Chapter 6 envisions the strategic power transformation in Eurasia and maritime Asia Pacific, and a possible Pax-Sinica world beyond 2050.