The One Belt One Road Initiative and China’s Multilayered Multilateralism

Abstract

Feng Yuan relates the One Belt One Road (OBOR) discussion to a broader discussion on the rise of China and its impact on institution building. The author contends that the OBOR initiative is an important and comprehensive project that touches many aspects of China’s international relations policies, including the objective of developing a “multilayered multilateralism”—a new set of institutions in order to support a new set of Chinese ideas and norms. The OBOR initiative resembles Beijing’s proactive approach to its foreign policies, and multilayered multilateralism is seen as an effective way to consolidate China’s new role in norm-setting and norm diffusion.