Conceptualizing the Silk Road Initiative in China’s Periphery Policy

Abstract

While the Silk Route Initiative (SRI) appears to be a novel foreign policy strategy under Xi Jinping’s leadership, it is integral to China’s periphery policy (zhoubian zhengce). Arguably, periphery policy is rooted in the Chinese imperial history and has remained a salient aspect of state formation and foreign policymaking of the post-1949 China. Under Xi Jinping, it has acquired a preeminent foreign policy goal. This study puts the SRI in a historical framework and argues for the centrality of periphery in China’s domestic and foreign policy. Looking at the SRI from the prism of periphery, while suggesting an essential continuity in Chinese foreign policy and strategic thinking, also indicates that periphery is not simply a frontier strategy. Rather, it encompasses the whole gamut of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Embedded thus in the periphery policy, the SRI is a well thought-out Chinese grand strategy to reclaim its geopolitical dominance in Asia and fulfill the goal of “China dream.” This strategy, in effect, challenges the US dominance and de-centers it from Asia and helps China to create a Chinese-centered order in Asia and beyond.