Smart Power: China's Belt and Road Initiative

One contemporary example of the use of smart power is China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Consisting of both an overland Economic Belt and a Maritime Silk Road, the BRI is the most ambitious infrastructure investment in history. First announced to the world in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping, China has since secured the signatures and agreements of 60 countries for such projects. The foundations for this project began even earlier, in 2001, when China first offered to build a brand new port in the small fishing town of Gwadar, Pakistan. They later connected a highway and railway creating, by 2018, a $62 billion corridor connecting to the BRI. On many occasions, China has offered billion dollar infrastructure loans to developing countries. China loaned about $1.5 billion for a new deep-water port in Sri Lanka, a key-stop on the Maritime Silk Road. This placed Sri Lanka in major debt and in 2017 China gained control of the port as part of a 99 year lease as an alternative payment. Similarly they gained a 40 year lease of the port in Pakistan as well as a naval base in Djibouti. Many analysts believe this is all part of China’s masterplan, the String of pearls theory: to create a string of naval bases in the Indian Ocean granting China near full control of ships that pass through. China demonstrates use of soft power in the above examples by giving aid to countries where development matters for Chinese interests. The BRI initiative, in a way, can also be considered hard power because through such development agreements, countries can be unwittingly forced to comply with China’s personal plans to grow as a global influence. Furthermore, Elizabeth C. Economy from the council of foreign relations states, “Under Xi, China now actively seeks to shape international norms and institutions and forcefully asserts its presence on the global stage”. Whether China’s motivations and use of power behind the BRI are innocent is up for debate.Nayan Chanda, former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review argues that China’s goal is to remake the global geopolitical balance of power. Others argue that “Chinese leadership simply hopes the BRI will improve China’s image among its neighbors, and help to rejuvenate them economically.”


https://youtu.be/EvXROXiIpvQ
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Future of Work - Connor Morley

Image
The future of work in America is, like any prediction, ultimately uncertain, but there are numerous factors that are contributing to what can be predicted. Through the careful gathering of data by the McKinsey global institute, it is plain to see what jobs/lines of work are likely set to thrive and which ones might be in danger. It seems to be the trend that the jobs most in danger of displacement are the ones that are on the lower end of the pay scale. This appears to be correlated highly with jobs whose workers do not possess college degrees, as evidenced by this graph: Which shows that college degrees are more important than ever in a global economy less willing to shell out the big bucks on manufacturing and blue-collar work than ever, even though they constitute the largest portion of jobs in the world relative to other occupations, which really illustrates certain inequalities brought-on by a country exemplifying a capitalist model, such as the United States.  ...
Read more

Hey Check This Out 12/11

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/republicans-discover-dangers-selling-bunk-their-constituents/617197/ This article from The Atlantic draws the parallels between the lead up to, and the aftermath of the 1860 and the 2020 US presidential elections.  The divisions between modern day Americans and the two political parties are similarly as divided as back in the 1850’s leading up to the election of 1860 in which Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) was elected, much to the outrage of the US South; As described in the article the fiery speeches in the US Congress and toxic political rhetoric and conspiracy theories that were prevalent in the lead up to the 1860 election, which can also be said about the harsh divisions in the current 2020 political climate. In some ways, electing Obama president in 2008 helped improve race relations on some levels, or at least it opened up more dialogue about several important topics that had been ignored or downplayed for too long; i...
Read more

Coronavirus and issues of Development and Power

Jorge Larach 5/20/20 GPHC Coronavirus and issues of Development and Power  I read two articles:  Why Rich Countries must Protect Developing Nations from Coronavirus Pandemic How is the United Nations responding to the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) / COVID-19 outbreak? Despite this assignment being due weeks ago, I still compared what these articles are talking about to today and processed the timeline provided in the second article (chronologically), as well as considered what the call to action of the first article was referring to. I think the first article provides a persuasive, fact-supported argument as to why higher-income countries should divert some of their attention to poorer countries, not just for the well being of those countries, but for theirs as well. It argues that if poorer countries are not given the support they need, monetary or otherwise, then not only will those countries be hit substantially harder than richer ones, but it will like...
Read more