‘Community of Common Destiny’ as Post-Western Regionalism: Rethinking China’s Belt and Road Initiative from a Confucian Perspective

Year 2021, Volume: 18 Issue: 70, 85 - 101, 13.08.2021

Raoul Bunskoek Chih-yu Shıh

https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.954744

Cited By: 4

Abstract

Conventional explanations of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) focus on how the BRI will be in China’s
interest, how it will strengthen China’s geopolitical position, or a combination of the two. We argue that such
views are limited because they merely interpret the BRI through ‘Western’ IR lenses. This paper ‘re-worlds’
China by using the BRI as a case study to illustrate how in the discursive field(s) of China’s elite, China as
a Westphalian nation state, and China as amorphous Tianxia under Confucianism coexist, struggle for
recognition, and are interrelated. Consequently, we argue that China, because of the economic miracle it created
domestically over the last few decades, is now convinced of its own ‘moral superiority’, and ready to export
its self-perceived ‘benevolence’ abroad. In this light, we read the BRI to be undergirded by a combination of
‘Western’ and Confucian values, suggesting a post-Western/post-Chinese form of regionalism.

Keywords

Belt and Road, Post-Western, Regionalism, Tianxia, Confucianism

Batı Sonrası Bölgeselcilik olarak ‘Ortak Yazgı Topluluğu’: Çin’in Kuşak-Yol İnisiyatifini Konfüçyüsçü Bir Perspektiften Yeniden Düşünmek

Abstract

Çin’in Kuşak-Yol İnisiyatifine (KYİ) dair geleneksel açıklamalar, KYİ’nin Çin’in çıkarlarına nasıl hizmet
edeceğine, Çin’in jeopolitik konumunu nasıl güçlendireceğine veya bu ikisine birden odaklanmaktadır. Bu
tür görüşlerin KYİ’yi yalnızca “Batılı” uluslararası ilişkiler merceğinden yorumlamaları nedeniyle sınırlı
olduklarını ileri sürüyoruz. Bu makale, Çinli seçkinlerin söylemsel alan(lar)ında Çin’in Vestfalyen bir ulus
devlet ve Konfüçyanizm altında biçimsiz Tianxia olarak nasıl aynı anda var olduğunu, kabul görmek için nasıl
mücadele ettiğini ve bunların nasıl birbirleriyle ilişkili olduklarını açıklamak için KYİ’yi bir örnek olay olarak
kullanarak Çin’i küresel bütüne yeniden yerleştirmektedir. Sonuç olarak, ülke içerisinde son birkaç on yılda
yarattığı ekonomik mucize sebebiyle şu anda Çin’in kendi ‘ahlaki üstünlüğünden’ emin ve öz-algısına dayanan
‘hayırseverliği’ yurt dışına ihraç etmeye hazır durumda olduğunu öne sürüyoruz. Bu bakımdan KYİ’nin, Batısonrası/Çin-sonrası bir bölgeselcilik biçimi öneren, ‘Batılı’ ve Konfüçyüsçü değerlerin bir birleşiminden destek
bulan bir okumasını yapıyoruz.

Keywords

Kuşak-Yol, Batı Sonrası, Bölgeselcilik, Tianxia, Konfüçyanizm

References

• Ang, Yuen Yuen (2016). How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Ithaca: New York, Cornell University Press.
• Bell, Daniel A. (2015). The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
• Chan, Stephen (2009). “A Chinese Political Sociology in Our Times”, International Political Sociology, Vol. 3, No 3, p. 332-334.
• Chan, Stephen (2013). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London and New York, Zed Books.
• Chen, Zhimin and Junbo Jian (2009). “Chinese Provinces as Foreign Policy Actors in Africa”, China in Africa Project Occasional Paper No 22, https://media.africaportal.org/documents/SAIIA_Occasional_Paper_no_22.pdf (Accessed 19 February 2021).
• Cheung, Steven N. S. (1996). “A Simplistic General Equilibrium theory of Corruption”, Contemporary Economic Policy, Vol. 13, No 3, p. 1-5.
• Harrison, Lawrence E. and Samuel Huntington (eds.) (2000). Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress. New York, Basic Books.
• He, Qinglian (1998). Xiandaihua de Xianjing (The Pitfall of Modernization). Guangzhou, Today’s China Press.
• J.P. (2017). “What is China’s belt and road initiative?”, The Economist, 15 May, https://www.economist.com/the-economistexplains/2017/05/14/what-is-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative (Accessed 27 December 2018).
• Hu, Jintao (2012). “Full text of Hu Jintao’s report at 18th Party Congress”, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America, 27 November, http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/18th_CPC_National_ Congress_Eng/t992917.htm (Accessed 17 February 2021).
• Jun, Kumakura (2018).“China’s Influence in Central Asia and Sino-Russian Relations”, Lecture at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C., 4 September.
• Kondapalli, Srikanth and Xiaowen Hu (eds.) (2017). One belt, one road: China’s Global Outreach. New Delhi, Pentagon Press.
• Lin, Justin Yifu (2010). New Structural Economics: A Framework for Rethinking Development and Policy. Washington, The World Bank.
• Lin, Justin Yifu (2012). Demystifying the Chinese Economy. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Ling, L.H.M (Lily) (2020). “Squaring the Circle: China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’” (BRI) and the Ancient Silk Roads”, Alan Chong and Quang Minh Pham (eds.), Critical Reflections on China’s Belt & Road Initiative. Singapore, Palgrave MacMillan, p. 23-40.
• Mouffe, Chantal (2005). The Democratic Paradox. London, verso.
• Mouffe, Chantal (2009). “Democracy in a Multipolar World”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies,Vol. 37, No 3, p. 549-561.
• National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) People’s Republic of China (2015). “Visions and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road”, 28 March, http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/ newsrelease/201503/t20150330_669367.html (Accessed 10 March 2019).
• Pan, Chengxin (2012). Knowledge, Desire, and Power in Global Politics: Western Representations of China’s Rise. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Pye, Lucian W. and Mary W. Pye (1985). Asian Power And Politics: The Cultural Dimensions Of Authority. Cambridge, Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press.
• Qin, Yaqing (2014). “Continuity through Change: Background Knowledge and China’s International Strategy”, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 7, No 3, p. 285-314.
• Rolland, Nadège (2020). “China’s Vision for a New World Order”, National Bureau of Asian Research Special Report, No 83, 27 January, https://www.nbr.org/publication/chinas-vision-for-a-new-world-order/ (Accessed 17 February 2021).
• Rosemont, Henry and Roger T. Ames (2009). The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.
• Rosemont, Henry and Roger T. Ames (2016). Confucian Role Ethics: A Moral Vision for the 21st Century?. Taipei, National Taiwan University Press.
• Shih, Chih-yu (1993). China’s Just World: the Morality of Chinese Foreign Policy. London, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
• Shih, Chih-yu (2011). “The West that is not in the West: Identifying the Self in Oriental modernity”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 23, No 4, p. 537-560.
• Shih, Chih-yu (2020). “Bound to Relate: Retheorizing International Order through Chinese Culture of Power”, Huiyun Feng and Kai He (eds.), China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the ‘Thucydides Trap’. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, p. 182-201.
• Song, Luzheng (2018). “Guandian: Ouzhou yinggai zhichi ‘Yidai, Yilu’ de liu da liyou (Opinion: Six Reasons why the EU should support the Belt and Road Initiative)”, BBC, 8 May, https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/world-39847203 (Accessed 26 December 2018).
• Tsai, Wen-Hsuan and Nicola Dean (2014). “Experimentation under Hierarchy in Local Conditions: Cases of Political Reform in Guangdong and Sichuan, China”, The China Quarterly, Vol. 218, p. 339-358.
• Wang, Gungwu (1968). “Early Ming Relations with Southeast Asia: A Background Essay”, John King Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, p. 34-62.
• Wang, Gungwu (2013). The Chinese State and the New Global History. Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press.
• Wang, Kai (2018). “Scientific Gentry and Socialisation of Western Science in China’s Modernisation during “Selfstrengthening” Movement (1860-1895)”, Almagest, Vol. 9, No 1, p. 69-95.
• Wang, Mingming (2012). “All Under Heaven (Tianxia): Cosmological perspectives and political ontologies in pre-modern China”, Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Vol. 2, No 1, p. 337-383.
• Wang, Mingming (2014). The West as the Other: A Genealogy of Chinese Occidentalism. Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press.
• Wang, Yiwei (2016). The Belt and Road: What Will China Offer the World in Its Rise. Beijing, New World Press.
• White House (2020). “US Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China”, 20 May, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.20.20.pdf (Accessed 21 December 2020).
• Womack, Brantly (2011). “Dongfang yu Xifang de ‘Tianxia’ (‘Tianxia’ East and West)”, Jilin Daxue Shehui Kexue Xuebao (Jilin University Journal of Social Sciences), Vol. 51, No 2, p. 85-91.
• Wong, Catherine (2018). “Malaysia Big Part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Vision for Future, Says Xi Jinping”, South China Morning Post, 20 August, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2160469/debt-ladenmalaysia-wants-fair-and-free-trade-china (Accessed, 26 December 2018).
• Wong, Catherine (2018). “Xi Jinping Says Belt and Road Plan isn’t About Creating a ‘China Club’”, South China Morning Post, 27 August, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2161580/xi-jinping-says-beltand-road-plan-isnt-about-creating (Accessed 26 December 2018).
• Xi, Jinping (2014). “Communique of the 4th Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of CPC”, 2 December, http://www. china.org.cn/china/fourth_plenary_session/2014-12/02/content_34208801.htm (Accessed 18 December 2020).
• Xinhua (2018). “Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Xianfa Xiuzheng An (People’s Republic of China Constitutional Amendment)”, Xinhua, 11 March, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018lh/2018-03/11/c_1122521235. htm?baike (Accessed 17 February 2021).
• Xi, Jinping (2015). “Xi Jinping zai di qishi jie lianheguo dahui yibanxing bianlun shi de jianghua (quanwen) (Xi Jinping’s full statement at the General Debate of the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly)”, Xinhua, 29 September, http:// www.xinhuanet.com//world/2015-09/29/c_1116703645.htm (Accessed 17 December 2020).
• Yan, Yunxiang (1996). The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village. Palo Alto, Stanford University Press.
• You, Zhuran et al. (2018). The Philosophy of Chinese Moral Education: A History. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Zhao, Suisheng (1997). Power Competition in East Asia: From the Old Chinese World Order to Post-Cold War Regional Multipolarity. New York, St. Martin’s Press.
• Zhao, Tingyang (2005). Tianxia Tixi: Shijie Zhidu Zhexue Daolun (The Tianxia System: An Introduction to the Philosophy of a World Institution). Nanjing, Jiangsu Jiaoyu Chubanshe.
• Zhao, Tingyang (2006). “Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept ‘All-under-Heaven’ (Tian-xia)”, Social Identities, Vol. 12, No 1, p. 29-41.
• Zhao, Tingyang (2009). “A Political World Philosophy in terms of All-under-Heaven (Tian-xia)”, Diogenes,Vol. 56, No 1, p. 5-18.
• Zhao, Tingyang (2016). Tianxia de Dangdaixing: Shijie Zhixu de Shijian yu Xiangxiang (A Possible World of All-under-heaven System: The World Order in the Past and for the Future). Beijing, China Citic Press.
• Zhao, Tingyang (2019). Redefining A Philosophy for World Governance. Singapore, Palgrave.