Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies An Analysis of 'Belt and Road' Initiative and the Middle East (original) (raw)
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China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Implications for the Middle East
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2018
This article examines the geopolitical and economic implications of the Belt and Road Initiative for the Middle East. It locates the BRI within the region's politics and examines the opportunities that the initiative offers for the region, as well as its inherent risks and challenges. It argues that the BRI is not merely an economic project as framed by Beijing, but that it represents a new stage in China's engagement with the region, and-if fully implemented-could have wide geopolitical implications. The Middle East has the potential to contribute immensely to China's sustained growth by addressing its energy security, supporting China's role as a 'megatrader', and, more importantly, driving China's efforts to become a global maritime power and monetary power by internationalizing the Renminbi (RMB). Thus, the BRI could have wide implications for the Middle East. Far from being a win-win project for all, the BRI will likely benefit some countries in the region more than others. Iran stands ready to benefit most. The BRI will likely increase the strategic importance of the Suez Canal and could potentially undermine the importance of some logistic hubs in the Middle East in favour of other trade hubs in Central Asia. Launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) is a comprehensive long-term strategic project that seeks to integrate Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa through a land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and a Maritime Silk Road (MSR). It signals a new emerging trend in China's foreign economic policy and has been described by Beijing as the third round of China's opening after the development of Special Economic Zones in the 1980s and accession to the WTO (in 2001). 1 Although Beijing deliberately avoids specifying the initiative's membership, many sources have highlighted that the BRI includes 65 countries, 4.4 billion people, about 40 per cent of global GDP and 70 per cent of the world's energy reserves (European Parliament 2016). Wu (2015) described the initiative as 'the most significant and far-reaching initiative that China has ever put forward'. China is implementing it as a broad conceptual development framework that aims to contribute to greater connectivity and economic integration through a diversity of activities and projects, some of which had already begun prior to 2013. Beijing has signed Memoranda of Understandings (MOUs) with more than 30 countries, all of which have pledged to jointly implement the BRI, and, as of the time of writing (May
China’s BRI: Regional Prospects and Implications
2021
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by China has emerged as one of the most important factors in the upcoming global politics. This plan can impact both regional and global politics. There are multidimensional and multifaceted repercussions of BRI for the international global politics. This paper describes the details of BRI, the micro-plans which are being planned under this program. Then, it enlists the economic and international politics benefits which China would gain from this plan. After that, this paper enumerates the possible benefits of BRI for the regional countries like Pakistan. In addition to that, this paper also highlights the possible global and regional challenges which China might face while completing and getting benefits out of this plan. After conducting a critical analysis of BRI’s trajectory, its possible global and regional repercussions for the emerging international politics, its benefits for China and the possible challenges this paper concludes that no matter ...
Belt and Road Initiatives (BRIs): Understanding China’s Intentions Behind It
European Journal of Law and Political Science
BRI is regarded as the most aspiring foreign and economic policy initiative of President Xi’s legacy. At the same time, Beijing has the overarching objective to achieve its geopolitical goals by economically binding China’s neighbouring countries through this initiative. Some Scholars are cynical regarding the success of BRI as planned by President Xi’s administration, urging caution for both China and the countries involved. President Xi’s exceptional overt emphasis on protecting China’s national interests that transpired into their newly formed foreign policy approaches has demonstrated that China’s commitment to peaceful development is not without conditions. China’s commitment to a peaceful rise will also be further conditioned by the many externalities, namely international and regional interest, domestic priorities, security dilemmas, power conflict, and conflicting core national interests from participating members, which in turn can be reciprocated with antagonistic strategi...
BRIQ, 2020
The Belt- Road Initiative (BRI) is a global project that connects China to other parts of the world, such as Europe, Asia and Africa, by land and sea. China's goal in launching this project is to expand its trade links to the rest of the world and to find a common ground in the global equation. The BRI is one of the manifestations of China's emerging power that will pose serious challenges to US hegemony. It is expected that the implementation of this project will not only increase China's influence and power in the regional and international arena, but also pave the way for Asia's economic development and increase its political and economic power around the globe. In this regard, the main questions of the article are: What are the salient characteristics of this project? What are the main challenges posed by the US? We suggest that the BRI will provide a golden opportunity for China to become a regional hegemon in Asia and then a hegemon in global level. Meanwhile, the US has resorted to tough measures to prevent China from becoming a hegemon by putting economic, political and financial obstacles in the way of BRI.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Global Politics and Implications
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global infrastructure development project that ambitiously aims to connect Asia with European and African continents through land and sea corridors. China adopted this gigantic game-changing master plan in 2013 and spurred much speculation among scholars and policymakers worldwide. This article investigates the development of the project through the lens of global political geography and economy. From an international relations perspective, the author consults relevant pieces of literature and focuses on the international issues and events concerning the development of the project using concepts of ideas, interests, and institutions within the scope of geopolitics and political economy. The analysis is performed by reviewing critical events and arguments related to the ideas, interests and institutions evolving around the implementation of BRI. Drawing from the analysis, the author argues that the rise of China as a dominant global superpower largely depends on the success of the BRI, and this initiative will continue to generate politics among the international actors, multinational entities, and institutions. Despite widespread speculations, the project poses a substantive threat to the USA's global dominance and is likely to create more global development cooperation under Chinese leadership and vision.
China, a civilization-country, has emerged in the 21st century2 as a gamechanger in international politics. At the heart of emergence lies its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013 and it is gradually taking a concrete shape. The BRI proposes a new ordering of international system where China aims to connect Asia, Europe and Africa in a singular thread through infrastructure building. In this ‘Project of the Century’, as President Xi calls it, all the participants are seen as winners and are voluntary members. In this article, I outline the historical, economic and cultural aspects of BRI. While doing so, I have contextualize the emergence of BRI in the contemporary setting. This article, thus, is divided in a few sections to score the purpose of understanding how BRI stands as a cornerstone of China’s foreign policy.
The Regional Impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 2020
This special issue examines the impacts and implementation of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Asian and European regions towards which the initiative is primarily directed. Introduced by President Xi Jinping in a pair of speeches in late 2013 (Xi, 2014: 315-324), and previously entitled "One Belt, One Road," the BRI was conceived as transport corridors to be constructed based on ancient Silk Road trade routes. Hence, the "belt" is defined as the land route (or routes) from China across Central Asia, Russia, and the Middle East to Europe, while the "road" somewhat confusingly refers to the maritime route that passes from the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean and hence to East Africa and the Mediterranean. The main routes of the BRI, at least as roughly outlined in the National Development and Reform Commission's (NDRC) publication Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21 st Century Maritime Silk Road (2015), are shown in Figure 1. Despite the rhetorical broadening of the BRI since 2016 to supposedly include other regions such as Africa, the Americas, and the Arctic, the transportation "corridors" outlined in the Vision and Actions publication (National Development and Reform Commission [NDRC], 2015) are all in Europe and Asia. This implies that the initiative is primarily Eurasian in its scope and that the core aim of the BRI is to connect China with Europe (Yilmaz et al., 2018). Although no official map of the BRI exists, those circulated by Chinese state media during the BRI's early years invariably emphasise (similarly to Figure 1) land and sea routes from Asia to Europe. Despite Chinese attempts to stretch the initiative's scope beyond its logical geographical limits, the five key BRI
China's Presence in Middle East and BRI
CHINAS PRESENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE BRI, 2024
The Middle East, being a hub of energy and oil resources, is of great importance to China in the highly interconnected globalized world. China's recent and enhanced presence in the Middle East refers to China's BRI aimed at regional economic integration in Middle Eastern countries. BRI poses multiple prospects and critical geostrategic challenges for China in the Middle East. The paper provides an important analysis of how China and the Middle East region are changing their course under the realm of BRI. Qualitative analysis will be used in this study to help improve the regional partnership and economic growth made possible by the BRI, as well as its hindrances. The study also aims to provide an inclusive understanding of China's strategic goals and interests in the Middle East in the framework of the BRI.