“Digital Silk Road” as a Slogan Instead of a Grand Strategy

Abstract

The rise of the Digital Silk Road has significantly shifted the focus of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This change in emphasis has produced sizeable political and academic analyses, considering that the Digital Silk Road is Beijing’s coherent top-down geopolitical—if not grand—strategy. This article challenges this view. By adopting a slogan politics approach, this article argues that the Digital Silk Road can be better understood as a vague political slogan. Far from a sophisticated top-level design, the rise of the Digital Silk Road was a result of economic and political struggles among domestic actors and the shifting socio-political landscape. This article also shows that Chinese domestic actors have (un)consciously interpreted the slogan of the Digital Silk Road in their preferred ways to advance their own agenda. Beyond nationwide support to echo the slogan, there is neither a coherent understanding nor a nationally concerted effort to advance a singular geopolitical objective, if there is any. Consequently, company-level interests and agendas, rather than a top-down geopolitical masterplan, have dominated the development of the Digital Silk Road.