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    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Third World Quarterly on 20/02/2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046

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Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”: Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Published

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Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”: Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis. / Jones, Lee; Zeng, Jinghan.
In: Third World Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 8, 01.08.2019, p. 1415-1439.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Jones, L & Zeng, J 2019, 'Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”: Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis', Third World Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 8, pp. 1415-1439. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046

APA

Jones, L., & Zeng, J. (2019). Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”: Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis. Third World Quarterly, 40(8), 1415-1439. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046

Vancouver

Jones L, Zeng J. Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”: Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis. Third World Quarterly. 2019 Aug 1;40(8):1415-1439. Epub 2019 Feb 20. doi: 10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046

Author

Jones, Lee ; Zeng, Jinghan. / Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” : Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis. In: Third World Quarterly. 2019 ; Vol. 40, No. 8. pp. 1415-1439.

Bibtex

@article{aea80ab5f86945a6b74ad7d9cc9a4310,
title = "Understanding China{\textquoteright}s “Belt and Road Initiative”: Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis",
abstract = "China{\textquoteright}s massive {\textquoteleft}Belt and Road Initiative{\textquoteright} (BRI) – designed to build infrastructure and coordinate policymaking across Eurasia and eastern Africa – is widely seen as a clearly-defined, top-down {\textquoteleft}grand strategy{\textquoteright}, reflecting Beijing{\textquoteright}s growing ambition to reshape, or even dominate, regional and international order. This article argues that this view is mistaken. Foregrounding transformations in the Chinese party-state that shape China{\textquoteright}s foreign policy-making, it shows that, rather than being a coherent, geopolitically-driven grand strategy, BRI is an extremely loose, indeterminate scheme, driven primarily by competing domestic interests, particularly state capitalist interests, whose struggle for power and resources are already shaping BRI{\textquoteright}s design and implementation. This will generate outcomes that often diverge from top leaders{\textquoteright} intentions and may even undermine key foreign policy goals.",
keywords = "China, Belt and Road Initiative, investment, governance, state transformation, grand strategy",
author = "Lee Jones and Jinghan Zeng",
year = "2019",
month = aug,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046",
language = "English",
volume = "40",
pages = "1415--1439",
journal = "Third World Quarterly",
issn = "0143-6597",
publisher = "Routledge",
number = "8",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Understanding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”

T2 - Beyond “Grand Strategy” to a State Transformation Analysis

AU - Jones, Lee

AU - Zeng, Jinghan

PY - 2019/8/1

Y1 - 2019/8/1

N2 - China’s massive ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) – designed to build infrastructure and coordinate policymaking across Eurasia and eastern Africa – is widely seen as a clearly-defined, top-down ‘grand strategy’, reflecting Beijing’s growing ambition to reshape, or even dominate, regional and international order. This article argues that this view is mistaken. Foregrounding transformations in the Chinese party-state that shape China’s foreign policy-making, it shows that, rather than being a coherent, geopolitically-driven grand strategy, BRI is an extremely loose, indeterminate scheme, driven primarily by competing domestic interests, particularly state capitalist interests, whose struggle for power and resources are already shaping BRI’s design and implementation. This will generate outcomes that often diverge from top leaders’ intentions and may even undermine key foreign policy goals.

AB - China’s massive ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) – designed to build infrastructure and coordinate policymaking across Eurasia and eastern Africa – is widely seen as a clearly-defined, top-down ‘grand strategy’, reflecting Beijing’s growing ambition to reshape, or even dominate, regional and international order. This article argues that this view is mistaken. Foregrounding transformations in the Chinese party-state that shape China’s foreign policy-making, it shows that, rather than being a coherent, geopolitically-driven grand strategy, BRI is an extremely loose, indeterminate scheme, driven primarily by competing domestic interests, particularly state capitalist interests, whose struggle for power and resources are already shaping BRI’s design and implementation. This will generate outcomes that often diverge from top leaders’ intentions and may even undermine key foreign policy goals.

KW - China

KW - Belt and Road Initiative

KW - investment

KW - governance

KW - state transformation

KW - grand strategy

U2 - 10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046

DO - 10.1080/01436597.2018.1559046

M3 - Journal article

VL - 40

SP - 1415

EP - 1439

JO - Third World Quarterly

JF - Third World Quarterly

SN - 0143-6597

IS - 8

ER -