Belt and Road Initiative alias Chinese Dream: How Are the Cards Dealt for This Game?

Abstract

An old Chinese proverb says, “if you want to be rich, build a path”. The People’s Republic of China (from now on, China) has already verified this proverb’s validity in the old Silk Road. The oldest and most famous trade route in history has managed to help China and the surrounding region reach an imaginary peak in its time. Today, after centuries of unrest, wars, economic decline, and international isolation, China is once again building a path to help it return to the world’s most developed nations, the New Silk Road, respectively the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI has been defined as “the most eye-catching and possibly the one with the longest-term significance” (Ferdinand, 2017) [“Westward Ho — The China Dream and ‘One Belt, One Road’: Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping,” in Weiqing Song, ed., China’s Relations with Central and Eastern Europe: From “Old Comrades” to New Partners (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 1–18]. The Silk Road project was introduced in 2013 by the Chinese President Xi Jinping in response to the economic crisis and the subsequent effort to find new markets and trading partners. The BRI restores the idea of the ancient Silk Road. The BRI is thus the result of a changed approach to foreign policy and the idea of opening up China. However, this policy cannot be perceived only as economic cooperation, but a well-thought-out Chinese foreign policy to expand its influence not only in Asia. The Sinocentric view of the world is thus one of the fundamental aspects of Chinese foreign policy formation. What will the country have to deal with in the future and, above all, what can we expect from China? This paper aims to provide insights into the visions proposed by the BRI, i.e. to capture the main milestones in the current development of the BRI, detailed analysis of its nature, and its current situation and implementation.