10.01.2018PERCEPTION OF CHINA’S “ONE BELT, ONE ROAD” IN RUSSIA: “UNITED EURASIA” DREAM OR “IRON CIRCLE” OF CONTAINMENT?
Larisa Smirnova
Senior Research Fellow at the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an expert for the Russian International Affairs Council. She lectures at Xiamen University in China.
Introduction
Since President Xi Jinping’s accession to power and following his unprecedented, for a Chinese leader, personal friendship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, it has become almost commonplace in the media discourse to closely associate “Russia and China” and to position this “couple” in opposition to the socalled “West” and/or “the United States and their allies.” Arguably, this association largely contributed to the public communication success that the Chinese project of “One Belt One Road” enjoyed globally in the initial months after its’ unveiling on March 28, 2015.
The Chinese project, that likely got its aspiration from an earlier American concept of the New Silk Road, was immediately described by epithets of “ambitious,” “grandiose,” “far-reaching,” and the like. Whereas the Chinese narrative cautiously stressed the economic infrastructures as well as, more recently, “information” aspects, the image of President Xi attending the military parades next to the proven warrior Vladimir Putin added credibility to the Chinese assertiveness. Promptly, it led the bewildered public imagine the return of the “Grand Age of Empires” and the possible advent of the finally united Eurasia, a dream that has haunted European history for millennia.
The Chinese discourse is structured around the pledge to provide development instructions without challenging the power leverage of local elites in developing countries. The Chinese government is indeed known for opposing the violent regime changes, especially the bottom-top “color revolutions”. At a point when the Western methods of economic and political reforms came under attack as having led to the unprecedented, in the post-Cold war era, the rise of security-related tensions around the world, it is understandable that the Chinese message, thus presented, has proved appealing. Being a non-Western country, China managed to absorb the Western development methods while maintaining the liberty to select and adapt them to its own cultural preference.
As it appears clearer now, however, the international popularity of the concept likely surpassed the expectations of the Chinese ideologists of the project. Originally the Chinese policy-makers might have been more preoccupied by domestic policy concerns than by any international ambitions. Among the goals they pursued there was certainly one that diverted the attention from the pressure for political reform by driving their own populations’ conscience towards exaltation and aspirations for the revival of ancient glory.
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