The Belt and Road Initiative and China's Foreign Policy Toward Its Territorial and Boundary Disputes

Abstract

Outstanding territorial and boundary disputes both on land and at sea between China and many of its neighbors remain a most sensitive, complicated, and enduring matter in their bilateral relations. In 2013, China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to promote connectivity and cooperation between China and the rest of the world through the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the oceangoing Maritime Silk Road. Under this Initiative, frontiers, land boundaries, borderlands, maritime boundaries, and the ocean enjoy unique positions. Obviously, impacts of these outstanding territorial and boundary disputes on the Initiative should not be underestimated. Meanwhile, the Initiative can facilitate cooperation between China and other disputant states on conflict management and dispute resolution. But such an effect should not be overestimated. Indeed, it can have a side effect, inducing some disputant states to take more provocative actions.