A New Integrative Vision: China’s Belt-Road Initiative and Its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Abstract

For nearly two centuries, China has been trapped in the dilemma of many developing countries, for which the modern West is both the imperialist enemy and the model of development. Its modern and contemporary history has seen violent swings from outright rejection of the West to imitation of it. Today, China is finally working its way toward a more integrative approach, drawing both on its experience of anti-imperialist revolution and of Western-style modernization, and is moving forward with a vision that would attempt to take the best from each of the hitherto either/or approaches. This change is well illustrated by China’s recent Belt and Road Initiative and the launching of the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank. Much of Western scholarship and analyses, however, are still largely mired in an older Cold War Manichaean world view, with a tendency to project onto China simply Machiavellian schemes in the pursuit and uses of power. Even Chinese scholars themselves, under the influence of political science studies that focus mainly on power and its use, have tended to overlook the distinctive Chinese mode of thinking of combining moral vision with practical considerations. Or, they simply restate or elaborate on official statements, without considering their actual practices or their underlying vision. We need a better understanding of the conceptual roots of China’s new perspective and vision in order to grasp its new strategy for development and its new integrative vision for the future. A comparison of the new vision with the recent strategies for rural development in China in the last section of this article will serve to illustrate more completely and clearly differences between the two approaches.