The Implication of the Rise of China to the US-Led Liberal International Order: The Case of One Belt and One Road Initiatives

Abstract

The rise of the “Middle Kingdom”, China, has been a source of intense academic debate amongst the Western scholars. On the one hand, the pessimists epitomized the “rise of China” as a threat to the US-led liberal international order. They provided a one-sided and biased analysis. On the other hand, the “rise of China” is portrayed as that of a peaceful rising power which is neither a threat nor a changer of the existing international order. Apart from these opposing perspectives, the US-led liberal international order has been facing an internal crisis within the liberal states. This shows that history has never been going as the liberal prophets predicated. The manifesto of “liberalism is the only governing ideology of post-Cold War period” is now falsified by the rise of populism and nationalism in the countries who drafted the manifesto of “end of history”. Alongside this, the inherently unjust system of the US-led liberal international order has also been facing increasing challenge from the emerging powers of the rest, notably China. This paper thus examines the implication of the rise of China to the US-led liberal international order by taking the “One Belt and One Road Initiative” (BRI) as a case. I argue that through the BRI, China envisioned a new equitable international order that can replace the prevailing exploitative order being established by the “Western powers” during colonialism. On the one hand, BRI foreshadows that China is a dissatisfied actor of the existing order and it is a revisionist power. On the other hand, BRI itself is a liberal project. Thus, BRI is not at odds with liberalism. It is functioning under the liberal order, but envisioned a new international order. Thus, it can be argued that BRI seems to be a liberal project challenging the US-led unipolar world order intended toward a more inclusive and transformative world order.

Keywords

• China
• One Belt and One Road Initiative
• US
• liberalism
• international order