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FRAGMENTED MOTIVES AND POLICIES: THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE IN CHINA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2021

Min Ye
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Abstract

Observers have portrayed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) variously, as China's great-power strategy, global infrastructure initiative, or commercial projects. Each characterization has had logical reasoning and evidence to support it. But how? How has one initiative been shown to have such varied motives? This article unpacks the Chinese state and establishes that a “tri-block” structure consisting of political leadership, bureaucracy, and economic arms has accounted for such varied motivations and actors in the BRI in China. In the BRI process, the leadership employed strategic rhetoric, and bureaucracies imposed policy ideas. Yet, more pervasively, the implementers have followed commercial motives in specific projects. BRI's strategic rhetoric and hazardous investment have generated external critiques and anti-China backlash, forcing Beijing to readjust the initiative. However, given the tri-block state structure, Beijing's policy adjustment will not be sufficient. Economic actors’ incentives need to be shifted too.

Keywords

ChinaBelt and Roadtri-block statepolicy cycleXi Jinpingfragmentationfeedback
Type
Article
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , July 2021 , pp. 193 - 217
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the East Asia Institute

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