Geoforum 99 (2019) 95–101
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Geoforum
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum
The geopolitics of connectivity, cooperation, and hegemonic competition:
The Belt and Road Initiative
Colin Flinta, Cuiping Zhub,
a
b
T
⁎
Department of Political Science, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84321, USA
Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, Kunming 650221, China
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Belt and Road Initiative
Global Production Networks
Strategic coupling
Geopolitics
Geoeconomics
China
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been interpreted as a strategy of economic development using new
infrastructure projects to intensify regional and global trade relations. It has also been interpreted as a means for
China to increase its influence in East and Southeast Asia, with implications for geopolitical competition with the
United States. Using a political economy approach that identifies territorial and economic logics of power as
integrated in a single logic, we argue that the economic and political processes and goals of the BRI are inseparable. We build upon the strategic coupling and Global Production Networks literature to show that the
territorial arrangements of GPNs have local, regional, and global implications. We conclude that the BRI is not
either an economic or political project, but one that transforms politics at multiple scales and has the potential to
be transformative and will simultaneously create possibilities for global cooperation and conflict.
1. Introduction
What is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? It has been described as
“China’s grand connectivity project” (Chung, 2017, p. 4), and a project
to foster international cooperation (Liu and Dunford, 2016, p. 335).
Alternatively, the BRI has been identified as a means for China to act
within the region (Wang, 2016a), which may be interpreted as a process
of geopolitical competition with the United States (Gan, 2010). We
argue that the BRI is a mixture of all three goals and strategies: economic integration, regional influence, and global geopolitical competition. Understanding the BRI as a multi-faceted project requires a
theoretical framework that integrates economic and political processes
to understand (1) how economic development requires territorial arrangements and (2) how geopolitical goals and implications are met
through economic visions. Our argument builds upon Glassman’s
(2011) call to add geopolitical considerations to discussions of economic interaction by linking the ‘messiness’ of local scale territorial
arrangements with the ‘simplicity’ of grand geopolitical visions. Specifically, we argue that when firms practice strategic coupling in a
system of production networks (Yeung, 2016), they are enabled by
states and economic connections are inseparable from territorial, or
geopolitical, goals and practices. The result is an understanding of the
BRI as a project that will transform local economies and, potentially,
the global geopolitical map.
⁎
We adopt a political economy approach to geopolitics that does not
give priority to either economic networks or the politics of territory.
Claims to the predominance of either geoeconomics or geopolitics as
explanatory frameworks obscure the long-standing interaction of networks, largely to facilitate trade and investment, with the territorialization of power (Taylor, 1993, 1994, 1995). The intersection of
these two meta-geographies has certainly been the defining feature of
the capitalist world-economy within the post-Westphalian era. Recent
scholarship that highlights the geopolitical nature of logistics (Cowen,
2014), or the increasing relevance of trade and investment to economic
statecraft, is useful in illustrating the contemporary expression of the
tension between flows and territory (Gottmann, 1973; Su 2015, 2016).
We emphasize that the BRI is a contemporary example of the operation
of states and firms in the world-economy have always been intertwined
in the form of a historical social system consisting of (i) a single worldmarket consisting of networks of trade and investment, and (ii) many
nation-states making the claim of practicing territorial sovereignty
(Kuus and Agnew, 2008).
Our political economy approach highlights the ‘single logic’ of
competition in the capitalist world-economy so that firms and states are
connected as the former seeks to maximize profits while states (i) seek
to ‘capture’ that economic activity within their borders, (ii) make global
connections that maximize the benefits of global economic flows for
their ‘domestic’ economy, and (iii) intertwine economic agendas with
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: colin.flint@usu.edu (C. Flint), zhucuip@sina.com (C. Zhu).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.12.008
Received 7 October 2018; Received in revised form 26 November 2018; Accepted 16 December 2018
Available online 21 December 2018
0016-7185/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Geoforum 99 (2019) 95–101
C. Flint, C. Zhu
attain regional goals in southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region,
with global consequences, namely competition with the United States.
The scholarly interpretation of geopolitical codes is a complicated
hermeneutic exercise. The act of interpretation of government policies
and intentions is done through the lens of a national perspective, either
explicitly or just as a matter of socialization via national setting and the
interpretations that ensue. Hence, we have endeavored to identify the
key voices within Chinese academia and provide a brief overview of the
dominant narratives around the BRI that are helping to define an understanding of the BRI, its purpose and outcomes, within China. We
have made specific reference to articles published in English by key
Chinese academics in an attempt to provide broad accessibility while
including non-western perspectives. Though admittedly a brief and
incomplete survey, we believe that the following discussion identifies
the key themes within China, and show how the BRI, as a component of
China’s geopolitical code, is portrayed within China and the differences
in dominant Western interpretations that often focus on the idea of
geopolitical “challenge” to US interests in East Asia.1
Chinese scholars and policymakers represent the BRI as an “initiative” rather than a “strategy.” This representation reflects a belief
that the BRI is primarily, if not solely, a geoeconomic project that is
separate from any geopolitical strategy: It is a promotion of the BRI as a
form of cooperation with the goal of shared economic growth and not
competition (Wang, 2015, p. 29; Zhao, 2016). The favoring of the word
“initiative” by Chinese policymakers also reflects the desire to represent
the BRI as something that does not threaten the US militarily; it is also a
cultural interpretation of “strategy” is planning or thinking, while “initiative” is action. When Chinese scholars interpret the BRI is seen as a
grand strategy it is identified as a plan for benefit of China within the
processes of globalization. One different voice is (Wang, 2012) who saw
the “Go West” strategy as a precursor to the One Belt, One Road project
and a response to President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” as a geopolitical
strategy. A more nuanced view sees the BRI as a project that may foster
regional integration that will re-shape the international political, economic, and security order of global politics (Huang, 2015). However,
the dominant perspective is of the BRI as an integrative economic
project that is disconnected from a strategy or process of geopolitics,
specifically hegemonic competition with the US. Of course, the BRI is
seen differently in the West, and is seen by many in the US as a challenge to its hegemonic status (Zhu, 2018, p. 152). We do not intend to
adjudicate the rhetorical battle between China and the US over the
geopolitical intentions, or lack of them, within the BRI. Instead, we
approach the BRI through academic concepts to show that the BRI is
part of China’s geopolitical code of creating connectivity and cooperation, with an additional aim, or at least implication, of reducing
US hegemony, especially US influence in Asia.
Geopolitical codes are the policy decisions that are intended to
achieve a geopolitical vision; namely, a broad or latent sense of national
identity that is translated into policy in response to a perceived or actual threat, with the ultimate goal of restoring “order” (Dijkink, 1996,
p. 16). For China, the ideal order is an Asia in which the post-Second
World war influence of the US is reduced, relative to an increase in the
traditional role of China in the region. To achieve such a vision, China is
enacting a geopolitical code through twin economic and political strategies (Blanchard, 2018; Goh, 2016; Wang, J., 2016a; Huang, 2015), of
which the BRI is the centerpiece. Making Asia a region is a territorial
outcome of the Asian segments of the BRI. Creating an integrated region, in which China is the dominant power, is a geopolitical goal
within the broader strategy of re-balancing global geopolitics that
geopolitical goals. It is this type of politics that simultaneously promotes, at least rhetorically, territoriality in a traditional Weberian
manner while creating new forms of territorial arrangements, or ‘messiness’ (Glassman, 2011, p. 162). While these geopolitical and ‘messy’
practices are being constructed to create and maintain economic connectivity, the BRI illustrates that they are also coupled with geopolitical
rhetoric that envisions the simplistic processes of classical geopolitics –
zero-sum games of hegemonic competition between states viewed as
unitary, and territorially simple, actors.
The BRI is a project that creates networks and regions. Networks
integrate and form regions, while regions are a geographic arena for the
formation and maintenance of networks (Glassman 2010; Sidaway and
Yoon, 2017). The two geographical expressions of networks and regions
are inseparable (Dawley et al., 2015; Martin and Sunley, 2006). As both
necessity and goal the BRI network forms new regional geographies.
The territorial nature of capitalism is a series of nodes in economic
networks, but investment, production, and reproduction create ‘spatial
fixes’ at local, national, and regional scales (Yang, 2017). Through
practice and discourse, regions are constructed as the arenas and settings for the formation and maintenance of networks. If this sounds
circular it is because it is. The single logic of power in the capitalist
world-economy recognizes the recursive nature of economic and political relations. At particular geopolitical moments the politics of economic development plays a role in global geopolitical shifts of hegemonic transition. This is one such moment.
2. Geopolitical codes and geopolitical visions
The fusion of the economic agency that forms the BRI with the
geopolitical goals of China rests on the practice and vision of regional
integration (Blanchard, 2018; Goh, 2016). It is such regional integration, a territorial outcome of economic connectivity, that is the form of
geopolitics that we discuss. The geopolitics is one of territorial arrangements necessary for economic connectivity, but with the added
element of competition between the US and China for influence and
relative position. Economic connectivity requires the decisions made by
states and related actors to further their goals that are the relatively
short-term, though not ephemeral, commitments known as geopolitical
codes. The practices of economic connectivity and political cooperation
that constitute the BRI are elements of China’s geopolitical code –
though enacted by state, non-state, and hybrid forms of actors. The
strategic goals of regional integration and Chinese regional ascendancy
are not only the proposed outcomes of China’s geopolitical code. They
are also maintained and justified as a longer term geopolitical goal that
rests on a reading of history. This guiding perspective has been termed a
geopolitical vision (Dijkink, 1996).
Geopolitical codes are the more specific, and adaptable, calculations
regarding threats, allies, and the means to address them (Flint, 2016a,
pp. 52-54). The idea of a geopolitical code is deceptively simple.
However, recognizing the relational nature of geopolitical codes recognizes that any one country can be seen in both a positive and a
negative light, such as recent statements by the Philippines towards
China. Moreover, the issue of how a relationship with one country can
have an impact on relations with other countries may complicate
matters considerably. For example, the problems of moving ahead with
the Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar (BCIM) component of the BRI
illustrates how second and third order relations between countries have
an impact on the crucial China-India relation (Zhu and Flint, 2019).
Highly pertinent to the issue of the BRI is the means by which geopolitical codes are enacted (Flint, 2016a, pp. 53). This paper shows that
forming relations through economic connections will have intended
and unintended geopolitical consequences, and strategic calculations
have political-military goals and consequences. Finally, geopolitical
codes may operate at neighborhood, regional, and global scales (Flint,
2016a, pp. 55-56). The BRI is an example of a geopolitical code that
builds upon relations with neighbors, such as Myanmar and Pakistan, to
1
As one of many examples see the New York Times “Money and Muscle Pave
China’s Way to Global Power,” published and accessed on November 26, 2018;
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/25/world/asia/china-worldpower.html. This article part of a series the paper ran under the provocatively
vague series title “China Rules.”
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Especially in the case of the BRI and China’s role, the role of the
state in facilitating economic agency cannot be ignored (Ciccantell,
2017). The ability of firms to engage in strategic coupling is necessarily
enabled by the actions of states and inseparable from their territorial, or
geopolitical, goals and actions. The actual practices of agency are
complex as though “many Chinese actors are relatively autonomous of
the Chinese state, they are often linked to it multiple and complex
ways” (Carmody, et al., 2012, p. 225). Economic connectivity is not a
zero-sum game in which either networks or territory should be at the
forefront of any explanation (Yeung, 2016, p. 5). The geopolitics of the
connectivity of the BRI combines the “multiple hybridities” of state and
non-state actors and the spatial fixes they create with simplified visions
of inter-state geopolitical competition.
The role of China, and other states, in enabling the economic agency
of the BRI is an example of “Braudel’s provocation” (Glassman, 2010, p.
18): Capitalists attempts to build monopolies, are not restricted within
particular economic sectors, and seek maximum return on their investments across the globe rather than within national boundaries. By
drawing attention to the goal of creating partial monopolies to maximize profits the “economic functions of the state” (Glassman, 2010, p.
27) must be included in our understanding of agency. The role of the
state illustrates that the geopolitics of territorialization are a necessary
geopolitical component of the BRI.
Territorialization is the political process by which specific forms of
economic, social, and political relations are created within particular
jurisdictions (Sack, 1986). Though these practices are fluid and include
connections beyond any limited sense of the local, they are a matter of
“fixing”, even if ephemerally, sets of relations in geographic settings.
This argument is the basis for Harvey’s (1982) “spatial fix” – an idea
that is axiomatic for contemporary human geography. Rather than
being seen as “local” such spatial fixes are connected by networks and
are the necessary basis of the relational practice of uneven development
(Smith, 2008) or core-periphery relations (Babones, 2005; Terlouw,
1992). The connectivity of the BRI is under-pinned by place-specific
geopolitics that link areas of differential value production that are
particular spatial fixes within different states (Zhang, 2017). Economic
flows require, and generate, geopolitical arrangements of local social
relations that are connected through cross-border interaction.
moves towards a multi-polar world (Kang, 2007).
Discussion of the politics of the BRI can fall foul over misunderstanding of terminology. The word hegemony is especially problematic. In Chinese the term means dominance and bullying, and may
be used to refer to the US’s use of military intervention in other countries as a means of its geopolitical code. Chinese scholars eschew the
idea that China is, or should, be pursuing this form of hegemony (Wang,
J., 2016a). As an academic concept, and the one adopted in this paper,
hegemony refers to the single dominant state in the world, is based on
economic capacity, and utilizes economic, political, military, and cultural forms of power (Wallerstein, 1984). In fact, at its moment of
greatest strength the hegemonic power is able to use political and
cultural power to set an agenda and establish institutions that enable it
to further its agenda (Taylor, 1999). Resort to military power can be
interpreted as a loss of power, as the hegemonic power can no longer
use its institutionalized agenda to reduce resistance and alternative
agendas. Hegemony is a process that involves a period of decline, and
there is no expectation that a hegemonic power must rise in place of a
previous one: Indeed, periods of multi-polarity have been a common
historical occurrence (Wallerstein, 1984).
The twin tropes of the relative decline of the United States and the
“Rise of China” have created discussion of a “post-hegemonic order” in
which “all states, China and the United States included, must adjust to a
new reality of negotiated asymmetry” (Womack, 2015 quoted in
Lanteigne, 2016, p.6). The Maoist Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence have been the established tenets of China’s geopolitical calculations. The tenets of “mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence” were established in a geopolitical context of a relatively weak China. As China’s economic, diplomatic, and
military power has increased these tenets continue to frame the geopolitical vision (Dijkink, 1996) of China’s geopolitical discourse (Chan
and Li, 2015). As we shall see, they are central to the geopolitical
practices and representations of the BRI.
3. The geopolitics of connectivity
The many infrastructure projects and trade agreements, and cultural
interactions that form the BRI are different forms of connections.
Political geographers have conceptualized connectivity as a relational
form of power (Allen, 2003), or by embracing the idea of assemblages
(Dittmer, 2014), or in a more structural manner through a world-systems approach (Taylor 1991, 1992), or by identifying geopolitical
constructs that are the outcome of structure and agency (Flint, 2016b).
Economic geographers have also explored connectivity; from the classical models of von Thunen (1966) and Christaller (1966), through
identifications of the importance of economic agglomeration (Scott,
1993), city-based networks of economic interaction (Taylor and
Derudder, 2015), to the current ideas of economic connectivity and
strategic coupling (Su, 2014; Yeung, 2016; Enns, 2018).
The economic activity within the BRI takes many forms, but in
general it is a set of network linkages made up of nodes of economic
arrangements in place-specific settings. This form of activity has been
defined as the strategic coupling of economic activity through Global
Production Networks (GPNs) (Yeung, 2016). By its nature, economic
connectivity is a cross-border practice that connects different ‘spatial
fixes’ that territorialize the processes of capitalism in different settings
in different countries (Glassman, 2011; Niewiadomski, 2017; Yang,
2017). The grand project nature of the BRI, represented in a series of
maps of linkages (Sidaway and Woon, 2017) is comprised of the ideas
and practices of strategic coupling, and hence requires a variety of local
spatial arrangements compiled by the agency of many geopolitical actors (Dawley et al., 2015). It is these, ostensibly, localized sets of
practices that have been defined as the geopolitical messiness of economic connectivity (Glassman, 2011).
4. The geopolitics of cooperation
The economic practices of connectivity require a foreign policy that
emphasizes international cooperation. Liu and Dunford (2016, p. 335)
identify five cooperation priorities in the BRI:
1. Policy coordination: co-development of large scale projects;
2. facilitate connectivity: infrastructure projects & removal of institutional and logistical bottlenecks;
3. trade facilitation;
4. financial cooperation: to offer good quality financial services;
5. people-to-people bonds: cultural and academic exchanges.
The economic connectivity of the BRI requires an enabling politics
of cooperation through a number of inter-locking bi-lateral and regional
schemes and projects that creates the alphabet soup of the BRI initiatives. On the one hand, these forms of cooperation can be seen as the
development of economic networks that require the spatial fixes of that
are a combination of local, regional, national, and trans-national scopes
making the BRI geopolitically ‘messy’ (Glassman, 2011). On the other
hand, the idea of cooperation belies the geopolitical competition that is
the other driving force behind the BRI: regional integration through
cooperation is seen as an enabler of regional and global competition
between China and the United States (Sidaway and Yoon, 2017).
The many projects that, in aggregate, comprise BRI are a combination of firm-specific initiatives (Yeung, 2016, p. 4) and economic
actions of the state (Glassman, 2010, p. 27). In addition, the geographic
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capability fit within the identification of threats and means to address
them that are components of China’s geopolitical code. The sense of
order and China’s traditional goals, one manifestation of which were
the Maoist Five Principles, indicate that current changes are still being
framed within an established geopolitical vision.
China’s intention to create a “harmonious Asia” hints at the geopolitical nature of the BRI. Connectivity and cooperation are the concrete economic and political building blocks for a “harmonious Asia”
that includes:
scope of these actions reaches beyond a narrow or territorial sense of
the national in to Global Production Networks (GPN’s) (Yeung, 2016).
However, the geography being created here is not solely one of networks or the broader, and ultimately structural, global economy. In
between is a goal to construct a regional expression of economic activity and geopolitical influence (Glassman, 2010, pp. 62-63). China is
investing in the region in a “China-centric” (Glassman, 2010, p. 133)
manner that reflects national policy goals such as the Western Development Strategy and promotes and enables the activity of firms, but
with an overarching strategy of national interest.
The actions and statements of the Chinese government are readily
interpreted as a combination of strategies in which economic and
geopolitical goals are entwined (Su, 2015, 2016). Economic production,
trade, investment, and infrastructure are fused in China’s vision for the
practices and outcomes of the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI is meant
to be truly transformative for the economic and political geography of,
at the very least, the whole of Asia (Huang, 2015; Shi, 2015; Zhu,
2018). The many kernels of that transformation are the forms of agency
Yeung identified through the concept of strategic coupling. The ability
to enact such agency is enabled by other forms of agency that are part
of China’s geopolitical code. One of the intended consequences of the
agency of the economic connectivity that comprises the BRI is to create
a new geopolitical landscape.
The ability to create a landscape of many economic connections that
will, in a very loose agglomeration, form the BRI rests on the creation of
infrastructure projects to create and enhance the physical linkages. The
ability to create these physical linkages rests on the capability to finance the infrastructure projects. The ability to finance the projects
rests on the explicit and calculated intervention of the Chinese government to create a new multi-lateral development bank, the AIIB. The
basis of the Chinese government’s calculation rests upon a geopolitical
code that is neighborhood, regional, and global in scope. These geopolitical calculations rest upon territorial strategies that are intra-state,
bi-lateral and contiguous, and trans-continental and oceanic.
Transformations at the local scale, that are best conceptualized as
strategic coupling, and potential transformations at the global scale of a
scope reminiscent of the grand theorizations of classical geopoliticians
are fused; and the connective tissue are the new infrastructure projects
within the Belt and Road Initiative.
With specific reference to the BRI, the construction of a region of
Chinese influence in, at the least, south-east and central Asia is a definite element of China’s geopolitical code. Though all economic connectivity will be geopolitical to some degree, in the sense that it requires cross-border relations because of the scope of GPNs, the BRI is
definitely geopolitical because of the role of the state in the economy
and the goal of securing regional political influence. The success of the
BRI, as an economic network connecting a myriad of economic agents
and projects, requires, and is a component of, the geopolitical agency of
China.
• a political order shaped by Chinese political principles,
• deference to China on sensitive security issues
• PRC-led regional economic integration, and
• A stronger ‘Asian’ cultural identity (Friedberg, 2014, quoting Heath,
2012).
These calculations are consistent with traditional Chinese objectives
adjusted to the new context of perceived US decline and the seemingly
achievable goal of a multi-polar world (Zheng and Gore, 2015).
Moreover, it is the agency of economic integration that will lead to the
geopolitical outcome of a “harmonious” Asia, and the benefits for China
that would accrue.
The importance of economic integration situates the BRI, or, as it
may also be known, One Belt, One Road, as a form of geopolitical
agency. Yu (2017) identifies three main economic goals within contemporary Chinese foreign policy:
• Constructing the One Belt, One Road Initiative to improve neigh•
•
bor’s infrastructure and cross-border transportation to help China
forge bi-lateral trade and regional integration.
Foster Foreign Direct Investment for Chinese companies to gain
more profit and expand global business operations.
Develop OBOR to promote economic development in the western
regions of Xinjiang and Yunnan to enable national economic integration and participate in global trade.
In sum, the first three goals will energize the dream, or geopolitical
vision, of a ‘great revival’ emulating the ancient Silk Road.
Furthermore, infrastructure enabling cross-border interactions, and the
investment behind them, are necessary “spatial fixes” to enable the
many forms of economic connectivity that constitute the BRI, and
economic activity in Asia more generally (Li, 2014, 2018, p. 34).
Construction of highways, airports, pipelines, and railways are spatial
fixes in and of themselves, but they are integral to a broader scope of
geographic change that connects forms of economic activity from one
end of a production chain to another. The ostensibly local is part of
broader scope of spatial fix.
The type of connectivity that is the essence of the BRI is a (perhaps
even the) central means of China’s geopolitical code. To quote Wang
(2016b, p. 459), “In the mind of Chinese planners, infrastructure, investment and industrial processing trade, and energy and currency
should become the top priorities of Chinese companies that engage in
international economic cooperation. Infrastructure construction and
trade and industrial investment are the field in which China has comparative advantage.” The multi-scalar nature of this strategy is driven
by the strategic imperative of connectivity, which blends ostensibly
domestic and global development strategies. For example, the Great
Western Development plan, announced in 1999, was aimed at ameliorating intra-Chinese regional differences that additionally “would establish the conditions necessary to attract private and foreign investment to link these places to the global economy” (Yeh and Wharton,
2016, p. 287).
The practices of economic connectivity and the related forms of
political cooperation are components of China’s geopolitical code, and
the goal of regional economic integration (Ferdinand, 2016; Friedberg,
2014; Heath, 2012). For example, Chung (2017, p. 2) points out that:
5. China’s strategic goals of connectivity
Recent years have seen an important change in China’s geopolitical
code. These changes are not exclusively related to the BRI. However,
the economic processes of the BRI are means by which one key element
of China’s geopolitical code, regional integration, may be fulfilled. In
turn, regional integration that promotes Chinese political and economic
influence is part of the grander strategic vision of reducing the hegemony of the United States and creating a multi-polar world. In 2007,
China began to change its military strategy to focus on force projection
with the goal to “protect the nation’s core interests, a growing number
of which lay beyond China’s borders” (Heath, 2012 quoted in
Friedberg, 2014, p. 144). In 2015, policy documents emphasized the
strategic importance of maritime linkages, signaling a gravitational
switch from China’s traditional identification as a land power to a sea
power (Chung, 2017, p.2). Policy decisions to create a “blue sea” naval
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form of politics that counters the presence of the US in the eastern
Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, as well as established forms of development practices.
The geopolitical role of the BRI is made explicit by noting that its
principles are in line with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,
which are defined in opposition to the extra-territoriality of the US in its
hegemonic role. The perceived nature of US hegemony is juxtaposed
against principles of inclusivity, respect for national sovereignty, and
development that is seen to benefit all rather than the most powerful
country. By connecting the economics of connectivity and the politics of
cooperation with a reduced role for the US in Asia, a geopolitical process of relative power transitions is inseparable from the ostensibly
economic goals of the BRI. Hegemony, as an academic concept, implies
the universal application, at least as an ideal, of the ideas, institutions,
and influence of one state. Reducing the geographic reach of such
universalism as part of reflects the means and goals of China’s geopolitical code. The fact that the goal is implicit or indirect suggests the
need to identify geopolitical agency outside of the military or security
sector of the Chinese state.
“By furnishing the broader region with new investments and development opportunities, China seeks to diversify its energy supply,
export, excess labor and construction material such as steel and
cement in a period of economic slow-down, create a network of
economic dependency that will consolidate its regional leadership
and hedge against the United States’ alliance structure in Asia.”
In other words, ostensibly local and economic actions that tie
businesses to broader economic networks are being created because of,
and hope to secure, a geopolitical vision of Asia that is the goal of
China’s national strategy.
Official statements of the Chinese government do not make explicit
connections between the BRI and geopolitical outcomes. In fact, it is
quite likely that the vast majority of Chinese policymakers involved in
the BRI reject any sense of geopolitical purpose attached to the project
(Shi, 2015). However, this does not mean that the connections do not
exist, either in an implicit way or as a set of unintended consequences.
For example, non-traditional security issues, as well as the difficulties of
promoting China-India relations that avoid the “security dilemma” can
derail progress towards the BRI’s goals of regional economic cooperation (Zhu, 2018, pp. 185–6).
For example, the following segment of President Xi’s address to the
19th CPC National Congress offers standard language describing the
BRI as an infrastructure project to drive economic development as a
form of international cooperation that is mutually beneficial: “China
will actively promote international cooperation through the Belt and
Road Initiative. In doing so, we hope to achieve policy, infrastructure,
trade, financial, and people-to-people connectivity and thus build a new
platform for international cooperation to create new drivers of shared
development” (Xi, 2017). It clearly refers to the related geopolitics of
connectivity and cooperation. However, the preamble to this statement,
in section XII of the published National Congress document entitled
Following a Path of Peaceful Development and Working to Build a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind, blends discussions of connectivity and cooperation with a geopolitical vision of a multi-polar
world that distinctly targets US hegemony. In fact, global multi-polarity
is seen not as a desire or a goal, but an existing “trend” along with
economic globalization and cultural diversity. This echoes almost
identical language found in the 2015 BRI vision document (National
Development and Reform Commission, et al, 2015). Such an identification of multi-polarity attempts to de-politicize the geopolitical outcome. In the Chinese geopolitical representations, the connections between the geopolitics of connectivity, cooperation and competition are
made implicitly and (relatively) seamlessly: “We should respect each
other, discuss issues as equals, resolutely reject the Cold War mentality
and power politics, and take a new approach to developing state-tostate relations with communication, not confrontation, and with partnership, not alliance” (Xi, 2017).
The same assertion of an already existing geopolitical condition is
found in the 2015 BRI vision document: “In the 21st century, a new era
marked by the theme of peace, development, cooperation and mutual
benefit” (National Development and Reform Commission, et al., 2015).
The connection of the three forms of geopolitics that we identify in this
paper was made in a statement that sees the transformation of the
global geopolitical landscape as a benign and welcome outcome of an
infrastructure project of international connectivity requiring international cooperation: “Accelerating the building of the Belt and Road can
help promote the economic prosperity of the countries along the Belt
and Road and regional economic cooperation, strengthen exchanges
and mutual learning between different civilizations, and promote world
peace and development. It is a great undertaking that will benefit
people around the world” (National Development and Reform
Commission, et al., 2015). The BRI Vision document is replete with
paragraphs that list the goals of the project, almost all conclude with a
declaration of an outcome of peace, or “harmony,” that implicitly
connects the type of development envisioned with the BRI as a new
6. The multi-agency of BRI geopolitics
The BRI is a means to integrate the twin Chinese foreign policy
concepts of constructing “new types of Great Power relations” and
fostering economic and political relations with neighboring states
(Ferdinand, 2016, p. 949). Hence, it should not be surprising that
“Almost all institutions in the [Chinese] central leadership and local
government are involved in foreign relations to varying degrees” (Yu,
2017, p. 363). Development projects driven by the hybrid institutions of
the state that constitute the BRI are extensions of China’s domestic
development strategies and actions (Carmody et al., 2012; Yeh and
Wharton, 2016, p. 309). The agency that creates strategic couplings is
implicated in the construction of geopolitical codes, and vice versa.
BRI is particularly relevant in exploring the geopolitics of economic
connectivity because of the specific nature of the Chinese state. In
general, the state plays an economic role “typically in areas regarded by
major capitalists as appropriate for public sector investment because
they are sectors marked by ‘market failure’ and/or the production of
‘public goods’ – such as utilities, transportation infrastructure, or national defense” (Glassman, 2010, p. 27). Arguably, the BRI epitomizes
such state agency. The BRI is being formed through the practices and
outcomes of the intersection of the economic sectors of utilities and
transportation with the imperatives and agency of China’s geopolitical
code. This intersection reflects the many institutions that constitute the
Chinese state (Carmody et al., 2012).
The previous section discussed how China’s national strategy included economic actions and goals that enabled economic connectivity,
and saw such economic agency as a means to reach geopolitical goals.
This section approaches the process from a different but complementary
angle by illustrating how economic connectivity requires an element of
geopolitical strategy. We do so by focusing upon the role of the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that was formed to “facilitate and
accelerate infrastructure development” (Yu, 2017, p. 353), and by so
doing we identify the bank as a geopolitical agent. The AIIB is a multilateral bank that was formed by China. Hence, it plays a role to facilitate economic agency across Asia, but by financing projects, especially
infrastructure, it brings forward China’s geopolitical goal of regional
integration.2
Though the drivers for China’s BRI were driven by financial and
Asia-wide concerns, there was still an element of strategy to the formation of the AIIB, and the launch of the BRI. Gan (2010, cited in
Callaghan and Hubbard, 2016) identifies a strategy catalyzed by
2
For a list of AIIB infrastructure projects see https://www.aiib.org/en/
projects/approved/.
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C. Flint, C. Zhu
highlighting a “single logic” (Chase-Dunn, 1989) in which economic
and political strategies are entwined.
The implications of our approach suggest that we must embrace the
conclusion that geopolitics is part of the process of constructing the BRI,
and intended and unintended geopolitical consequences will result.
This is not to say that we see the inevitably of conflict, especially between the US and China, as a result of the BRI. Instead, we believe that
by acknowledging the geopolitical nature of the BRI a more fruitful
conversation between China, the US, and other countries can emerge; a
conversation that tackles geopolitical issues through immediate dialog
rather than subsequent conflict.
China’s, ostensibly, domestic needs of expanding export markets, improving energy security through the construction of overland routes,
and developing China’s soft power through tourism and cultural exchange. The means for this strategy were infrastructure investment,
revolving around the key policy of enhancing connectivity (Callaghan
and Hubbard, 2016, p. 120).
The opportunity, or need, to re-cycle savings was married with the
belief that transport costs, rather than tariffs, were posing the main
obstacle to intra-Asian trade (Callaghan and Hubbard, 2016, p. 120).
Highways, railways, pipelines were identified as the tangible schemes
and outcomes to ameliorate transport costs. The AIIB, and the financing
of the BRI as well as many other initiatives, was created as the institution to enable investments with the primary intention of enhancing
trans-national connectivity. The AIIB’s role was, however, indirectly
related to China’s national strategy. Part of the bank’s role was to catalyze private investment in to infrastructure projects by identifying
worthwhile projects, “enhancing the project selection process,” and
improving the general investment climate (Callaghan and Hubbard
2016, pp. 135–136).
In addition, a purpose of the AIIB is to depoliticize, to some extent,
relations between countries, enabling the forms of cooperation that
facilitate economic connectivity. A multilateral bank allows a leading
shareholder to set the agenda, while simultaneously allowing recipient
countries to claim that funds, even those designed to increase bi-lateral
connectivity, are multi-lateral in nature. For example, Myanmar and
Vietnam finessed political concerns regarding direct loans from China
by accepting AIIB loans (Browne, 2015; Callaghan and Hubbard 2016,
p. 123). The dominant Westphalian view of the world sees countries
(whether seen as donors or recipients) as the primary actors, and hence
national strategy is disguised, to some degree, by channeling funds for
infrastructure projects that are parts of China’s geopolitical code
through a multi-lateral bank.
Connectivity is the prime means for facilitating the flows of investment and trade that were simultaneously deemed important for
businesses across Asia, Asian countries, and China’s national strategy.
The practices of cooperation are to form the connectivity essential for
economic growth and profitably of firms. China’s national concerns of
intra-state economic integration and the use of excess capacity were
also addressed by enhancing intra-Asian connectivity. Furthermore,
China’s geopolitical strategy saw connectivity across Asia as a means
and an end. Hence, Gan’s (2010) identification of the rather vague
strategic goal of the BRI to improve China’s regional security is directly
connected to the goal of regional economic integration.
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