At a time when globalisation from the West appears to be in retreat, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a potent symbol of the rise of China-based globalisation.
The BRI, part of Xi Jinping’s ‘China dream’ to ‘revitalise the Chinese nation’, is a two-fold project: a belt to link the great Eurasian continent with overland railways, highways, pipelines and other infrastructure, and a road to link China with Southeast Asia and even Africa through ports and other maritime linkages. Collectively, it was known as ‘One Belt, One Road (OBOR)’ but is now usually referred to as the BRI.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the Roundtable Summit Phase One Sessions of Belt and Road Forum at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake on 15 May 2017 in Beijing, China. (Photo: Reuters/Lintao Zhang).
The BRI comes at a time when global divisions are intensifying. Diverse nationalisms with the potential for serious conflict are becoming more marked. Economic globalisation and free-trade once seemed so eminently desirable that few dared go against them. Yet there is now less consensus about the benefits.
The BRI’s primary aim is economic. One major objective is to reduce disparities in China by spurring growth in the country’s underdeveloped hinterland and rustbelt. At the World Economic Forum in January 2017, it was Xi Jinping — the first Chinese president to attend — who took the lead in supporting globalisation and opposing protectionism. Xi Jinping stated flatly in the forum’s opening speech that ‘just blaming economic globalisation for the world’s problems is inconsistent with reality, and it will not help solve the problems’.
Late in 2014, the Chinese government set up the New Silk Road Fund and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to promote infrastructure that would support the trade and other economic linkages involved in the BRI. Around the same time, operations on a railway line linking Yiwu, a county-level city in Zhejiang Province, with the Spanish capital Madrid, had begun. Another major development is the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Some commentators see the primary objective of the BRI as domestic, believing it is largely aimed at reducing disparities. It is also likely that China sees the BRI as a potential bulwark against Islamist terrorism in Xinjiang and along its western borders, since economic development is the best reinforcement against political instability. But the foreign policy dimensions of the BRI are also extremely important.
The investment promised by the BRI is large enough to invite comparison with the US Marshall Plan that revived European economies in the wake of World War II. Less positively, it is suggested that China is trying to economically take over the countries of Central Asia and elsewhere.
Please click here to read the full “The Belt and Road to China-based globalisation” article in the East Asia Forum by Griffith University Emeritus Professor Colin Mackerras.
