Description
Unveiled in 2013 China’s belt and road initiative (BRI) has aroused wide international attention, as well as criticisms and positive appraisals. The existing literature is primarily concerned with potential economic effects of the BRI on the participant nations and with interpretation of the Chinese motivations and its payoffs from this ambitious initiative. It conveys grave concerns about the negative effects of China’s expanding global clout, including the entrapment of the recipient nations in debts, as well as a realist perception of the Chinese rising influence at the expenses of the West and its allies such as India. This article attempts to moves beyond somewhat simplistic and over-used (neo-)realist, security, and international-level analyses populated in the existing literature. It purports to examine an under-researched aspect of the BRI in the existing literature, that is, the domestic and external political and economic risks the BRI could entail for China. In the analysis the author examines the domestic-international and political-economic linkages of the BRI projects and effects of these projects on China. The tentative findings suggest that the BRI incurs noticeable risks for China, including grievances of the Chinese populace at the diversion of domestically-needed resources into external adventures, low overseas economic returns of the BRI projects, and a backlash from nationalist sentiments in recipient nations. It proposes that an optimistic estimate about China’s international payoffs from the BRI need to be balanced against an appreciation of these substantial risks associated with domestic political economy and governance. The study thus demonstrates the necessity to study a major international strategy by any nation by taking into account the domestic dimension and its implications.
Key words: Chinese foreign policy, domestic-external linkage, international economic strategy, development project, domestic politics, critique of realism.
