Review: Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order – by Bruno Maçães

The Belt and Road Initiative or One Belt, One road, is the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s foreign policy initiative that came into existence in 2013, when first formally announced by Chinese premier Xi Jinping. Since that point in time it has started to become a reality and is a transformational international political project, that offers an alternative to Western US hegemony and that signals the rise of China on the world stage and a true global player.

So, in essence, what is the Belt and Road? It is based around the ancient trade route ideas of the Silk Road, which evolved during a period of great Chinese power, influence and trading with the rest of the world. We are all familiar with the tales of Marco Polo and who cannot deny the great Chinese inventions such as paper and gunpowder that fuelled our own renaissances and advancement as civilizations?  There are not only several possible land route alternatives to the Belt and Road, passing for example through the Middle Corridor, but also a maritime Belt and Road trade route and the links are not just Eurasian in perspective as the Belt and Road has no true limitations and is reaching into wider realms such as Australia or to the East in Japan, and has far-reaching tentacles venturing into Africa, where there has already been much Chinese influence as they develop. It is a complete overhaul and solution to Chinese foreign policy, a neat package of external power politics and global influence.

The Belt and Road has had an initial focus on more proximate areas to China itself as the trade routes establish themselves. A lot of the focus is  on poorer regions closer to the Mother Country, areas deep in Central Asia, that bridge the gap towards ultimate end trade destination points in Europe. Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and one of the cherry nations in the initial phase of expansion is Pakistan. There has been a great deal of resistance to the policy, from obvious quarters such as in the USA who are scrambling together their own response and also India which as a nascent and future global power who is rising in China’s shadow, fear the influence of Beijing, especially in their own neighbourhoods and identified foreign policy target markets. It tends to be a case for countries and areas to either get totally on board or not but the overall response so far has been positive and the Belt and Road can be considered a Xi Jinping success story. Obviously there is a long way to go and with the fractured state of global politics in general at present anything is possible and potential roadblocks could reverse a lot of the initial success.

It has been tentatively welcomed in Europe and there is a mixed bag of results. In Hungary, they have agreed strategic partnerships with China, including defence arrangements. Ports such as Naples have more or less totally immersed themselves with Chinese investment and other major port cities such as Rotterdam have awakened to the initiative. In places such as Germany and France, the economic powerhouse states of Europe, there has been a more frosty reception and it is difficult to assess the impact on the European Union of a rising China. Also, in spite of the current proximation of politics with Putin’s Russia, the Belt and Road risks China coming into conflict with the Kremlin’s own ambitions for power, especially in Central Asian States where there has been a clear balance in economic geopolitical influence.

The Belt and Road offers a lot of cheap Chinese government loans and investment and directly target economic development in target areas although the money is not without cost and a lot of conditions tend to be attached such as the use of Chinese firms for construction projects and in building the underlying necessary infrastructure and although often denied, there is a clear Chinese Red Army militaristic side to the politics with a sort of ceding of port authority and military bases being set up in some pretty key strategic areas that in the event of future global conflict, could prove very dangerous to potential enemies of China.  

I think that on the whole that the Belt and Road is a positive project that will improve the world and it is very significant, whatever your political beliefs. In essence its main deliverance for the Chinese Communist Party is that it announces them truly on the world stage and offers countries a credible alternative to the global status quo of Western liberalist values and it is a success story. Will the world become more polarized as a result? Favours are being gathered in international organizations and less scrutiny is being placed upon traditional criticism of Chinese human rights and there is a more general acceptance of authoritarian rule and it questions the adage that capitalism has totally defeated the spectre of Marxist values and communism.

This book offers a relatively brief outline of the Belt and Road project thus far and in the evidence that it presents the author if often neatly asking questions and seeding the thoughts in your mind about what exactly the Belt and Road means for the world. I think that it is very much under-reported and a relatively unknown quantity in the West and it is essential that we, as a main target market, study and learn about it and hopefully it will enhance our lives in the manner in which it is intended. It is not necessarily a provocative political strategy that is an anathema to Western values. I am sure that as it unfolds the story and results will become clearer. The Belt and Road could be the biggest global event and transformation so far in the twenty-first century and now it is here and progressing it is something that we should address. I think a future Sino centric global model could ultimately displace our current global situation and it is very much a major market move towards a general global upturn in Asia-Pacific which is definitely and undisputed fact in global realpolitik

I shall be using the knowledge of this text to base future deeper study and I would recommend the book to any potential reader who is seeking an entry level understanding of the Belt and Road Initiative.