Abstract

This chapter analyses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as Beijing’s grand strategy to assert and legitimate its foreign policy objective of becoming world leader by 2049. Despite Chinese rhetoric about the BRI being a project that will benefit the international community, and which is in line with the current international order, realpolitik factors inform and drive the project, as China reinforces its exports, increases its sphere of influence, and increasingly sets tomorrow’s norms. As the case study of Southeast Asia delineates, the BRI is indeed not limited to economics, but includes geopolitics, security, norms, narratives, and other dimensions as well. The case study demonstrates the challenges that Beijing faces and that result from the dialectic process of grand strategy.

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