Among the news items and analyses from this week, of particular interest is a Financial Times article which, taking stock of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the just-concluded 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, draws quite a grim picture of the implications of China’s rise for the West [An Assertive China challenges the West]. The article begins by stressing the ‘growing official confidence’ in China about its own rise vis-à-vis the ‘decline of the West’. It then elaborates on the three main domains wherein the Chinese challenge is most visible: ideological, economic, and geopolitical. In particular, as far as the geopolitical dimension is concerned, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is seen as the cornerstone of Beijing’s master plan seeking to turn Eurasia into a ‘community of common destiny’, which will rival and eventually replace the Euro-Atlantic region as the main global axis.
While there is certainly some truth in the author’s analysis, his conclusions seem to draw heavily on the rather outdated ‘China threat’ theory –very popular especially in the US in the 1990s. Although Beijing has definitely become more visible and assertive on the global stage since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, its rhetoric has so far firmly remained anchored to a portrait of China as a cooperative rather than competitive global power, seeking to reform rather than to ‘spoil’ the international system in order to achieve win-win outcomes. Moreover, while concrete BRI-related initiatives have been making significant progress, the alleged Eurasian grand strategy is still very far from being implemented. For one thing, Sino-Russian cooperation, which would be essential if this master plan were to actually take shape, is marred by a very deep gap between discourse and practice [The Gordian Rail Tie: Russia’s Mythic Belt and Road Cooperation]. Despite rhetorically hailing closer ties, Beijing remains remarkably indifferent to Moscow’s domestic politics and to the way they hinder project-based cooperation, thereby displaying a lack of adaptability in the implementation of the BRI which, in turn, does not suggest that it is actually concealing ‘anti-Western’ geopolitical plans behind this initiative.
Francesco S. Montesano
This week's Silk Road Headlines
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