China’s New Global Initiatives

This book provides the first in-depth analysis of China’s Global Initiatives launched between 2021 and 2023 as elements of a coherent strategy intended to construct a Chinese-led international order. This highly ambitious enterprise was initiated in 2013 and has relied on the Chinese socialization of the Global South political elites, which uses the prestige infrastructure projects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as material incentives. In recent years, however, China’s economic problems, major difficulties with the repayment of BRI infrastructure loans, and the Western infrastructure counteroffensive have triggered a serious crisis that has significantly reduced the effectiveness of the socialization process. This book argues that the creation of the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative, and Global Artificial Intelligence Governance Initiative, as well as the recalibration of the Belt and Road Initiative, represents a response to this crisis. The new Global Initiatives complement and partially replace the ‘old’ BRI by extending the repertoire of Chinese policies and actions to the domains of non-infrastructure development assistance, international security, civilizationism, and AI-based industrial revolution. If successful, they have the potential to bring China’s international order to maturity, which will result in the emergence of a bipolar international system.