Beschreibung
The contributions compiled in this issue engage
in critical evaluation of China’s “New Silk Road initiative”
(“Belt and Road Initiative” [BRI]) by focusing on the
potential long-term political and economic effects and
implications for Sino-EUropean and Sino-African relations.
The authors take the launching of the BRI (October 2013) as
a starting point for a general, theory-guided qualitative
re-evaluation of the basic patterns of Chinese foreign
relations and global interactions under the fifth generation
of Chinese political leaders. In 2013, the Chinese state
president, Xi Jinping, framed BRI as a global connectivity
network consisting of a multitude of overland passages and
maritime transportation corridors. Xi Jinping’s report to
the 19th Party Congress (2017) set the BRI as an anchor
concept of China’s fine-tuned foreign strategy in the 21st
century.
Nele Noesselt is professor of Political
Science with a special focus on China and East Asia at the
Institute of Political Science and the Institute of East
Asian Studies (IN-EAST) at the University of Duisburg-Essen,
Germany.
