Description
This paper examines whether participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is associated with increased diplomatic engagement with China. Existing discussions often assume that deeper economic integration produces closer political ties, yet BRI participation varies substantially across countries and stages of involvement. I argue that BRI-related infrastructure should be understood not simply as economic cooperation, but as a form of visible and costly commitment that can generate diplomatic signaling. At the same time, the political effects of such participation are unlikely to be linear. Rather than expecting a smooth progression from non-participation to symbolic entry to active implementation, I develop a stage-based framework in which diplomacy may cluster around moments of formal entry, reassurance, and signaling. Empirically, the paper uses a country-year dataset on high-level diplomatic visits to China, combined with BRI MoU dates and project-level implementation evidence. The results show that countries with active BRI projects are somewhat more diplomatically engaged than MoU-only countries, but much of this difference is explained by pre-existing closeness to China. Across the broader categories of no MoU, MoU-only, and MoU plus project, the evidence does not support a linear pattern. Event-time analysis further suggests that diplomatic activity is concentrated around MoU signing rather than increasing persistently afterward.