To what extent is the intention behind the Belt and Road Initiative political?
Vincent Liu
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a loose array of projects launched by Xi Jinping in 2013. Originally called the 'One Belt One Road Initiative ’ , the BRI was meant to improve China's economy through overseas investment. Since 2013, it has grown to involve 150 countries and has invested over $1 trillion in construction (China Power, 2017). Western right-wing media, especially pro-Republican sources like Fox News, tend to claim that the BRI is primarily a political campaign that is malevolent and used for empire-building. They use two theories to support this view. Firstly, there is the debt-trap theory. Emerging nations are coerced to accept unaffordable loans to pursue infrastructure projects. When the recipient fails to keep up with repayments, China can expand its influence in that region by seizing a portion of sovereign territory. According to this viewpoint, Beijing aims to seize the assets of nations facing financial difficulties to increase its military or strategic reach. Secondly, western sources promote the idea of the 'string of pearls'. They believe that China will use the BRI to expand its naval presence and influence in order to secure trade through the Malacca Strait, thus encircling its regional rival, India. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) furiously denies these allegations. While they agree that political motivations exist, they do not characterize the BRI as having insidious political intentions. Beijing presents the BRI as a policy that promotes clean, transparent and sustainable global development rather than solely benefiting China's economy. In my view, the BRI has political intentions, notably that of improving relations and creating alliances to combat their main rival, the USA. However, the BRI operates under mainly economic intentions. These include: 1. Increasing connectivity and coordinating infrastructure plans to encourage trade with China. 2. Offloading excess capacity by moving facilities to foreign markets. It is important to remember that much of the discussion around the intention of the BRI is based on speculation. This is because the CCP regime is opaque by nature. Furthermore, information about BRI dealings and construction processes is not published. This is a typical approach for endeavours undertaken by the People's Republic of China (PRC), rendering both top-down analysis (assessment of official statements) and bottom-up analysis (inferences drawn from individual projects) unreliable. Therefore, no one can ever truly understand the intention of Xi and the standing committee other than Xi and the committee themselves. We have seen that western sources claim that the BRI has malevolent political intentions and is used for empire-building, and that this is achieved through debt-trap and the string of pearls strategy. Indeed, many analysts claim that debt-trap diplomacy and the string of pearls strategy are inexorably linked. The formula is said to work like this:
First, China approaches a nation with an offer it cannot refuse. For example, China offers to pay for and build a stadium, airport or railway using loans, all with few strings attached. Then, when the recipient
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