A Bellwether of China’s Role in Global Governance

China, a rising power in the US-led international order, has significantly expanded its global clout since
President Xi Jinping took office in 2013. The country’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in particular, reflects
a more assertive Chinese leadership on the global stage and plays a central role in Xi’s fight for the “great
renaissance of the Chinese nation.” Yet the speed at which China has sought to leverage its growing
economic power in international affairs has evoked concern. Capitals from New Delhi to London fear that
China is challenging the existing global order in an attempt to replace it with a Chinese arrangement. If left
unaddressed, these reservations could limit foreign support for the BRI and even generate pushback
against China’s global governance efforts.
The international community — including both developing countries and traditional major powers —
currently views the BRI through a zero-sum, geopolitical lens. If China’s initiatives are to be successful,
Beijing needs to lessen distrust of its intentions by focusing on its domestic aspirations, underlining its
acceptance of responsibilities as a major stakeholder in the international order, and highlighting its non-
monetary investments and areas for mutually beneficial international cooperation.
A Focus on Domestic and Regional Development
According to the Chinese government, the primary aim of the BRI is to promote regional connectivity and
China’s domestic development, not to challenge US leadership; it sees the BRI as a win-win that will benefit
both China and the other countries involved. The initiative was identified as a key priority of the country’s
13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020). As of May 2017, the Ministry of Commerce estimates that China has
invested more than $50 billion in BRI countries since 2013 and Chinese businesses have built 56 economic
and trade cooperation zones, generating $1.1 billion in tax revenue and creating 180,000 local jobs.
Through the BRI, China seeks to address its imbalanced domestic development by extending projects to
the country’s less developed western provinces and addressing issues of overcapacity. For example, the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will connect the city of Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port. Likewise, the China-Europe Railway Express, linking
western China to Europe, provides opportunities to further trade and economic ties. The BRI also creates
opportunities for surpluses in construction-related industries – such as iron, steel, and cement
manufacturing – to be absorbed in Belt and Road regions. In addition, Chinese enterprises can benefit from
the new markets, resources and relatively lower operational costs in BRI countries.
Although many countries along the Belt and Road, including Nepal, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, welcome
China’s effort to promote regional cooperation and development, other countries have raised concerns that
China will use its rising economic power to reshape the current global economic order to reflect its own
interests or to gain leverage over developing countries that owe large debts to Beijing. Indeed, the question
of whether China is a status quo or a revisionist power has been debated for years. As Beijing has gradually
abandoned its low-profile diplomacy to seek a more prominent and active role on the global stage –
including by creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, more assertively defending its territorial
claims in the South China Sea, and increasing its involvement in multilateral institutions – these questions
have once again come to the fore. Given these concerns, China should continue to reiterate that its primary
focus is on promoting domestic development.
Read More: Revolutionizing Connectivity through Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI)
Reluctant Global Leadership
Western powers, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, appear to be withdrawing from global
governance. Britain’s vote to leave the EU, the rise of populism in the United States, and large-scale
demonstrations breaking out in some European countries all point to a trend of anti-globalization. In this
context, China’s increasing engagement in global governance is being seen as aggressive and
opportunistic.
Yet Western powers have long been calling for the country to contribute more to global challenges and to
become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. And Zhang Jun, head of the Department
of International Economic Affairs in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has noted that if Western nations
withdraw, a rising power like China could be forced to step in: “If China is required to play that leadership
role, then China will assume its responsibilities.” Western observers have made similar comments. For
example, Louis Kuijs, head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong, has stated that “it is
very likely and understandable that China . . . will try to fill those gaps with this initiative, and that is very
logical.” From the Chinese government’s perspective, the country’s more active role in global governance,
including through the BRI, should be welcomed.
An Alternative Developmental Path
Many outside observers and governments fear that China is using the BRI to promote an alternative
developmental path to liberal democracy. Indeed, few would dispute that the BRI helps to amplify the
country’s influence and voice worldwide, yet the Chinese government maintains that the initiative does not
aim to change the global economic order but is, instead, fundamentally designed to give developing
countries access to additional resources, best practices, and expertise. China believes it has more than
three decades of experience to share – related to incremental reform, market development, incentive
creation, policy experimentation, export-led growth and state capitalism — and that its unique experiences
and institutions contributed to the country’s economic boom.
China has gained confidence and desires to share its development experiences as it invests in overseas
projects and to spread its institutional and cultural influence. The BRI provides an avenue to achieve this.
In 1994, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce began to train government officials from developing countries.
Once the BRI was launched, this training programme was integrated into the initiative’s strategy. In 2015,
China established the Belt and Road Initiative Scholarship, attracting students from BRI countries who want
to pursue professional and academic degrees in China. The Chinese leadership hopes that these less
visible efforts will have at least an equivalent, if not greater, impact on foreign views of China.
The government contends that China is building its authority within the global economic order rather than
challenging US leadership or actively seeking global leadership. With its increasing influence over global
economic issues, China may pursue more political and even military involvement to protect its overseas
interests (for example, the Chinese navy assisted with evacuating Chinese citizens from Aden during the
Yemen crisis). But these efforts will not conflict with key principles underlying the global political order, such
as respecting the sovereignty of other nations, solving conflicts peacefully, and negotiating through
multilateral institutions. None of these principles challenges China’s core interests.
In the current world order, China is already an important player; it is a recognized nuclear power and a
permanent member of the UN Security Council. There appears to be little incentive for the country to seek
to revise the global political order. In the meantime, there might be conflicts between China and other global
powers but most of these conflicts can be solved within the UN framework. China is certainly behaving
more assertively, possibly as a way to gain a higher profile in diplomacy. But seeking a higher profile does
not necessarily translate into revising and challenging the status quo.
Looking Ahead
China is determined to make the BRI successful despite the financial uncertainties and political and security
risks ahead. To overcome challenges of strategic mistrust, China should further engage regional and global
stakeholders to reassure them of its intentions. At the tactical level, China should not solely rely on its
economic largesse to win the support of partner nations. Over the long term, the country will need to
highlight the less visible benefits of the BRI, such as the sharing of development experience and expertise,
the promotion of regional and global cooperation, and the delivery of more global public goods.
Although China is not yet able to wholly reshape the global economic order in its own image, as long as the
country’s economy continues to grow, the BRI will allow China to play a larger role in setting the rules and
norms and providing global public goods, especially if developed Western countries continue to withdraw.
The ultimate test of China’s future leadership in global governance, however, depends on its ability to win
countries’ support for the “China model” of development and its foreign policy approach