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Hailed as Xi Jinping’s magnum opus, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has yielded him immense influence by reshaping global trade to revolve around China. Dubbed the ‘Chinese Marshall Plan,’ the BRI is an infrastructure project that will provide foreign investment to other states to create an “interdependent market for China” to “grow [its] economic and political power“. The breadth of China’s power is truly staggering, as Jinping’s modern ‘Silk Road’ reaches over 100 countries and exceeds the US’s $37 billion spent overseas on development by $48 billion. China’s rapid economic globalisation has led the CEBR to estimate it will overtake the USA as the world’s biggest economy by 2028, much sooner than previously predicted. Instead of Covid-19 detrimentally hindering China’s progress, its economy grew 2.3% in 2020, while all other major economies battled recessions, furthering the perception that China will rival the US’s hegemony on the global stage. In contrast, the US’s epic mismanagement of Covid hurt its reputation as a global ringleader, having far more deaths per capita than any other developed state.
China’s role as an emerging superpower is plausible, as its multi-trillion infrastructure project has seen it become Africa’s and South America’s biggest trading partner, with Chinese investment reaching US$90 billion in 2018. President Jinping has asserted the BRI will “promote mutually beneficial cooperation” for a “brighter future”: yet the sinister undercurrent of China’s supposed ‘altruism’ raises the question of whose future this is supposedly benefitting. Through manoeuvring poorer states desperate for investment and foreign aid into high-interest loans, the resulting crippling debt has arguably caused a neocolonial power dynamic to emerge; with experts arguing that China is using economic imperialism to gain global dominance. Perhaps Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-systems theory comes into play here, with China depleting the Global South’s natural resources and funnelling it into its own flourishing industries, condemning many developing nations to ‘peripheral’ status dependent on the ‘core’ for investment and capital. China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ has even awarded it territory: Sri Lanka was forced to yield its Hambantota dock and 15,000 acres of land for 99 years after failing to keep up its repayments. This could potentially increase China’s political leverage through its proximity to India, which is considered to be China’s closest competition in becoming the next superpower.
China’s desire for expansionism and global influence contrasts with the USA’s increasingly insular policies. Perhaps America has lost its hunger for global dominance, as exemplified by Trump’s isolationist “America First” strategy, appealing to more than 60 million Americans in the 2016 election. America’s desire to take a step back on the global stage is further shown by the U.S. alienating key allies by threatening to leave NATO, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and the Iran Nuclear Deal. America’s decision to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership benefited China directly by leaving a gap in the Asia-Pacific market to fill with the BRI. Despite Biden reversing some of these policies and reiterating that the US will remain the world’s only superpower, his abrupt removal of troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover furthers the notion that the USA’s days as the global arbiter of justice are over. Even economically, China has dethroned the USA as the wealthiest country worldwide, perhaps foreshadowing America’s declining status and China’s rise.
However, recent data from AidData suggests that China’s power is in decline, with several Belt and Road states, such as Sudan and Costa Rica, cancelling their contracts after witnessing the consequences of Chinese investment in Sri Lanka. This is a significant blow to China’s plans for world domination, with Kazakhstan and Bolivia even halting Chinese projects worth more than $1 billion. The USA, backed by the G7, has announced its Build Back Better World rival infrastructure initiative, hoping to appeal to developing countries more than China’s uncompromising debt practices. Yet, with the USA following China’s lead by providing an alternative to the BRI, Biden arguably views China as viable competition threatening its position as the world’s only superpower. China setting the trend with America taking the helm many years later and only with the G7’s backing, suggests that China has become the world’s new trailblazer, with other states trailing behind in the political sphere.
Written by Samira Chowdhury
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