When the Local Returns

Abstract

Built on the preliminary observations from the narration of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), I use the case studies of trilateral cooperation projects and the International Poverty Reduction Centre in China (IPRCC) in order to explain how local development norms are translated back to the global and in other localities. Instead of simply consolidating or challenging the global norms, different versions of China’s development experience containing its universality and particularity are formed at the same time. Elements and contents that are usually not defined as local normative preferences, such as notions of democracy and community participation, are added beneath the canopy of the “Chinese experience” and therefore reinforce the global normative status quo, while local preferences on prioritising state-led economic growth are absorbed into the international development discourse.