The Belt and Road Intiative: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Abstract

THROUGHOUT THE 1980s, Deng Xiaoping famously counselled Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials that in international affairs, China must ‘bide [its] time, be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership’. Under each successive leader through to Hu Jintao (2002–2012), the CCP largely followed Deng’s counsel. In the era of President Xi Jinping, however, Chinese leadership on such global issues as free trade, emissions reductions, and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank represents a strategic shift, which is epitomised by the centrepiece of Xi’s foreign policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 一带一路. Although Xi first