THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE AND CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY IMAGE
Abstract
The article discusses the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a discursive intervention through which China aims to create new subjective positions to improve its foreign policy image globally. To a great extent, this initiative can be considered a response to the persistent negative assessments of China’s rapid development and its potential impact on the international community.
The paper uses the analytical categories from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s theory of discourse to demonstrate how discursive strategies used to promote the BRI relate to the "symbolic opposition" built upon the priority tasks of economic development. As a result, the Belt and Road discourse relies significantly not on defining what the Chinese initiative is, but on what it is not.
A wide range of texts related to the official and academic discourse in China was utilized.
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