Paper short abstract:

BRI wasn’t announced by chance. This contribution aims to show how China has shaped its foreign-policy strategy to become a superpower and how China adapted its domestic policy for that purpose. In addition, what supporting role China’s political system and Chinese culture play in this.

Paper long abstract:

About ten years ago, China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) was officially announced by President Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan, it became a mega investment project with international attention and political reactions (B3W, Global Gateway)! BRI is much more than just an infrastructure project, it reflects how China’s strategical understanding looks like. In fact, China has been working on its foreign policy with further global puzzles like RCEP, CAI and CPTPP.

In the domestic policy, China has followed its zero-covid for three years strictly. By December 2022 China has turned 180 degrees and dropped all restrictions overnight, without any plan and preparations. It shows the opposite of a strategy.

Do we in Europe understand China and Chinese? It’s always opaque for western world to look to China. Chinese culture is long term oriented (Hofstede). On the other hand, Chinese business is famous for its flexibility and pragmatism. How can long-term orientation and short-term decisions match in investment?

Increasingly China is perceived as main rival from USA. The perception about China in Europe has turned more negative. Relationship between Russia and China is strongly criticized by the western alliance. At the same time, most of the emerging countries (Brazil, Africa) do follow China’s new world order.

The world has reached its post covid phase. Is Chinese political system resilient enough to boost economic growth again? What has been changed in China after Covid? And how has China changed the world? We need to study these developments thoroughly!