Today, as China and the United States actively compete for influence around the world, theoretically informed and empirically rich analysis of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) interactions with the international economic and political order is essential. Leveraging the insights of power transition theory and rich empirical analysis, in China’s Belt and Road Power Transition: Preparations and Blowbacks, Chien-peng Chung argues the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the “primary medium for China to build enough influence among foreign countries and regional organizations to replace the US in the top position of the international hierarchy of states and preeminent writer of their rules of interaction” (p. 2). He asserts that Chinese leadership “pushing the BRI as a global infrastructure development strategy to guarantee China a central role in the international supply chain [will] create a Sino-centric network of economic, financial, political, and strategic relations with foreign countries that [will] enable China to accumulate enough influence to challenge the US for the top position in the international hierarchy of states” (p. 4).
In the book, Chung draws attention to linkages between China’s domestic politics and foreign policy in the BRI. He describes the BRI as a marriage of nationalism and globalism held together by complex interdependence (pp. 5–6). He argues that the BRI is a “concrete, external expression and power projection of Xi Jinping’s guiding philosophy of realizing the ‘China Dream’ and his galvanization of national pride through the promise of ‘great rejuvenation’ of the Chinese nation” (p. 10). He claims the BRI is a “valuable foreign policy tool for China to showcase its one-party, authoritarian state-capitalist development model on a global scale, by transferring capital, technology, and advice to needy counties in exchange for raw materials, markets, and purchases, while extending its geopolitical influence and security interests” (p. 13).
Finally, Chung argues that China uses the BRI to demonstrate to the Global South that it is a new kind of great power in the international system. In his words,
By touting its cooperativeness and responsibility as an international state actor, China, through the BRI, is positioning itself not only as the leader of the non-Western, anti-imperialist, and postcolonial Global South by virtue of being a successful, large developing country but increasingly as a worthy alternative to US dominance of the world political-economic order and its brand of liberal democratic capitalism, toward which the CCP, with its desire for monopoly on power and total control over society, has always been anathema. (p. 13)
China’s Belt and Road Power Transition contributes to the Chinese foreign policy literature and international relations literature more broadly by providing the reader with a comprehensive, detailed description of various elements of the Belt and Road, including the Silk Road Economic Belt, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the Health Silk Road, the Digital Silk Road and the Polar Silk Road. The wide range of geographic regions covered in the book, including Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the South Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, increases understanding of BRI as a global initiative for China to project influence. The book’s research incorporates primary and secondary sources, with a heavy reliance on journalistic accounts providing details about China’s behaviour through the BRI. The book is especially relevant for undergraduate and graduate courses studying China’s foreign policy, the BRI, and interactions with the Global South. It also offers scholars of Chinese foreign policy and policymakers an empirically rich account of BRI over the last thirteen years.
The primary weakness of the book is that although it frames its arguments in alignment with theoretical insights of power transition theory, the discussion of those theoretical arguments is relatively limited in the empirical chapters of the book. This primarily empirical work would have benefited from more in-depth analysis of how China’s behaviour in regions and across functional areas examined in the book relates to the theoretical literature.
Overall, China’s Belt and Road Power Transition provides the reader with a detailed history of the Belt and Road and its multifaceted implementation around the world and across functional areas. It frames the BRI as a broad strategic initiative that is key to understanding a potential power transition between the US and China. In its final chapters, the book discusses the emerging pushback that is occurring against the BRI and what that could mean for China. It argues “with China’s on-going technology conflict with the US and the West, and a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, […] the BRI as Beijing’s primary power transition instrument, is experiencing unintended adverse results and serious, if not fatal, blowback” (p. 4). The author’s observations about the history and current state of BRI provide important insights for students, academics and policymakers to consider as they contemplate the characteristics of a future power transition between the US and China.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this book review are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the US Government.
