LAUSR

Abstract China has become the second largest economy in the world in a historically unprecedented space of time. Subsequently, China has begun to exert a form of geoeconomic influence that is changing the way we think about both the nature of international relations in the 21st century and about the precise uses China’s policymakers will put their growing power into. This paper explores these debates and China’s evolving approach to foreign and strategic policies through the prism of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). If the BRI becomes a reality it will quite literally cement China’s place at the centre of a regional network of production processes that will inevitability enhance China’s overall economic and geopolitical importance. At the very least, China’s ascent is forcing a reassessment about the nature of power and influence in the contemporary international system. Not only is the nature of economic organisation currently raising important theoretical and practical questions about the basis of international competition, but it is also becoming increasingly clear that the power and influence of national governments are largely determined by relative shifts in the balance of economic power, as much as it is by more traditional strategic factors.