The Belt and Road Initiative: Multilingual Opportunities and Linguistic Challenges for Guangxi, China

Abstract

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is to construct a large unified market, to make full use of both international and domestic markets, and to enhance the mutual understanding and trust of member nations of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through cultural exchange, people-topeople ties and integration. Geographically adjacent to ASEAN countries and is close to India and Bangladesh in South Asia, Thailand and Cambodia in Southeast Asia, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region of China is a key littoral or southern gateway for China’s BRI. Foreign language planning is an essential element for the social development of a country economically and culturally. By reviewing the implementation of the foreign language policy in Guangxi, I analyzed the multilingual opportunities and linguistic challenges in the region, which shares the cross-border languages with its neighboring countries in the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual community, to reveal the sociological meaning of the foreign language policy beyond its linguistic meaning, and propose an English-plus multilingual policy approach toward the ASEAN countries to meet the current needs of communications associated with the BRI.

Keywords

• the belt and road initiative (bri)
• multilingual opportunities
• linguistic challenges
• guangxi