How Does the Belt and Road Initiative Shape ASEAN? China’s Dual-Track Approach under Strategic Interdependence

Abstract

In 2013, China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced the ten-year plan for a “diamond decade”, and President Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road to expand further relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Scholars have explored China’s motives and whether the BRI serves as a public good to foster ASEAN connectivity or Beijing’s economic and geopolitical interests. Based on data of more than 440 China-backed investments with above US$100 million in four essential BRI sectors since 2005, collected by the China Global Investment Tracker (CGIT), this article upends the BRI to investigate how it shapes China–ASEAN relations. It argues that China engages in a two-track approach with less essential public diplomacy on the first track and the actual implementation procedures under strategic interdependence on the second bilateral track, thus implying contradictory trends for the bloc’s development and China-ASEAN relations.

Keywords

• international political economy
• connectivity
• infrastructure
• energy
• resources
• bri
• geoeconomics
• strategy