Abstract
With the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama in his article ‘The End of History?’ claimed the absolute dominance of Western political and economic ideas to govern and regulate the global economy and politics. However, in the 21st century, China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR), also known as the Belt Road Initiative, has emerged as a major challenge to the United States (US)-driven liberal economic development model. OBOR’s emergence and expansion have engendered the debate that incrementally rebuts Fukuyama’s claim and reinforces an emerging Chinese world order. Against this backdrop, Bruno Macaes’ Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order is an interesting academic contribution that elaborates OBOR’s overarching perspective and demonstrates how it might reconfigure the existing development trajectories toward a Chinese-driven economic world order.
The central argument of the book is OBOR is an ambitious, comprehensive and an evolving idea that potentially redefines existing development processes and repositions Beijing as the central ideological driver for transnational economic development. Beijing’s OBOR is a significant foreign policy instrument that integrates and expands China’s economic footprint through various land and sea routes. Chinese involvement in road construction, building of ships and ports, financial investments and lending integrates the country’s economy with the global economy through interventions in countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Arctic. However, China’s transnational economic development has larger implications for the global economic-military security and normative values that would be fraught with constructing competing world orders.
Macaes firmly states that OBOR would significantly increase Beijing’s economic, military and political leverage against a US-led world order. For example, the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is an important institutional mechanism that provides financial support to boost OBOR projects. Beijing also manipulates OBOR to reinforce its military power and regulate the shipping routes by engaging its navy and setting up military bases. China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti is an early signal of such militarized development policy. Perceiving China’s growing military presence, Malaysia’s President Mahathir Mohamad says ‘we would not like to see too many warships in this area’ (p. 130) as it would attract other warships and heighten the prospect of interstates military conflict. OBOR’s military dimension is manifested as China passed a law in 2016 that legitimizes the state leaders to use civilian assets for the military purpose.
Invoking OBOR as a new world order, Beijing attempts to spread and strengthen the ideas based on Tianxia—that is, the principles of sincerity, reciprocity and global interdependence. Unlike the Western world order that perpetuates dependency, power politics and conflict, the Tianxia proffers a ‘community of shared destiny’ (p. 26) that binds and integrates countries together, and OBOR is a major force that drives the establishment of an international system as an alternative to Western-led world order.
When presenting an overview of OBOR, Macaes also discusses the potential challenges to China’s dream of reshaping the world map. China faces major hindrance from the USA, Japan, India and Australia as the Quad reinforces their Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to derail OBOR. Ongoing hindrances, for example, the escalation of trade disputes, have exacerbated the US–China rivalry. As a rising and geographically proximate power, India might pose a threat to OBOR as the project passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and potentially violates New Delhi’s territorial sovereignty and integrity. Macaes discusses how, as a ‘swing state’ (p. 135), India might be a major stumbling block to China’s alternative world order. Japan has also categorically expressed its displeasure with Beijing’s growing and unrestrained military hegemony as the latter claims its absolute right over the South China Sea and intensifies its military buildup around the Indian Ocean to exert a strong influence upon the shipping routes. Likewise, many developed and developing countries are skeptical and worried about China’s joint venture and cheap financial lending because OBOR’s militarization and lack of financial transparency might threaten developing countries’ (e.g., Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar) political and economic sovereignty and developed countries’ dominance over particular technologies (e.g., Germany’s concern over Chinese access to rocket and nuclear technology). Interestingly, Beijing gets strong support from Russia, Pakistan and other Central Asian countries to accelerate its global project.
Despite the imminent impediments, the author is very optimistic about the potential of OBOR as an evolving and influential global economic model. Looking at OBOR’s prospect, he argues that the post-OBOR world would see a significant change as Chinese and Western ideas converge, potentially on issues of improved connectivity, openness and interdependence. However, the convergence might not reduce fundamental US–China conflicts over the nature of the world economy, global politics, security issues and shared values.
Considering the author’s exhaustive analysis of OBOR, this book is pertinent for scholars and practitioners working in the fields of development studies and international politics, especially those interested in understanding the impact of China’s practices on the global political economy. The book will also of interest to scholars examining the interrelationship of economic development and international security. While the author’s firsthand experience of the OBOR makes this book very useful to understand the OBOR, Macaes fails to examine the OBOR project from the theoretical perspectives. Though, analytically, the book represents the argument coherently, but absence of a theoretical analysis weakens the argument and academic rigor. While examining the post-OBOR world order, the author tries to briefly explain how Tianxia or Confucian ideas could reshape the world order but fails to develop it fully to justify his analysis. Further, the author is in haste to cherish and claim that Chinese world order would derail the existing political-economic world order. While it is true that Beijing is getting strong support for OBOR from some countries, China might face a tough task ahead to establish a Sino-centric world order.