Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 5-12 – Dr. Zenel Garcia and Dr. Phillip Guerreiro – “What American Policymakers Misunderstand about the Belt and Road Initiative”


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Jul 10 2024 9 mins  
American accounts of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) contend that it is a coherent grand strategy that reflects Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions. These accounts ignore the BRI’s fragmented nature, whereby Chinese provinces have been pivotal actors in its development and implementation. Furthermore, these accounts disregard the agency of participant countries and their capacity to shape the BRI. This article illustrates this fragmentation and agency by studying the Yunnan province and its domestic and international neighbors. It contends that these dynamics indicate that the BRI lacks coherence and that Beijing’s capacity to extract geopolitical benefits will remain limited.

Read the article here: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol54/iss2/4/

E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.

Keywords: China, Belt and Road, fragmented authoritarianism, geopolitics