1.1 Introduction
“The road that links us all: The Belt and Road Initiative” (min. 1:28, The State Council 2015). These are evocative words in a promotional video by the State Council of the People's Republic of China given in 2015 to envisage the global dimensions of China's foreign policy. China introduced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 as an elaborate global infrastructure development and economic strategy for a brighter future. Nevertheless, there is concern among foreign audiences that China-backed infrastructure projects function as “infrastructure bait”. It is claimed that once foreign states “hook” on an infrastructure project, China “plays” and “reels” the states into their sphere of influence, and consequently, develops a Sino-centric world order. Within this context, this book does not take a geopolitical approach to assess the BRI, but rather it centers on questions of communication, infrastructure, identity, and foreign policy.
This book explores how China uses its communication power to imagine prosperous and peaceful economic corridors, and conjure up the idea that cooperation with China constitutes a historical continuation of friendly foreign relations. As it happens, China narrates vigorously about infrastructure and the history of the Silk Road to establish a Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). Two goals that international political communication contributes to and that I explore herein are: (1) China's objective to stabilize relations with BRI-partners; (2) China's aim to be recognized internationally as a global technological superpower, combining the roles of infrastructure and standards-setting power.
To understand how these goals are pursued, this book explores China's formation and projection of “strategic narratives” about the BRI (Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle 2013). This approach contributes to scholarly debates about strategic narratives in Chinese discourse (Lams 2018; van Noort 2019b, 2020a; Yang 2020; Zeng 2019), and China's “going-global” media strategies (Hu and Ji 2012; Sun 2015; Thussu, De Burgh, and Shi 2017). It addresses the following questions:
By exploring these questions and drawing on perspectives from a variety of disciplines, this book conceptualizes and identifies China's digital communication of Silk Road and infrastructure narratives.
China uses its infrastructure narratives to respond to foreign audiences’ desire for infrastructure capacity and innovation, following their anticipation of social, political, and economic benefits arising from new or improved infrastructures. China tailors its communication by attending to the six infrastructure modalities that I argue in this book give form to infrastructure narratives: spatial, temporal, political, economic, technological, and perceptual modalities. Each of these modalities covers positive and negative meanings of infrastructures. As a result, states strategically explain infrastructure behaviors and actions from the perspectives of space, time, politics, economics, technology, and user experiences (perceptions) that together support a compelling infrastructure narrative. These six infrastructure modalities are conceptualized based on the Science and Technology Studies literature.
This book explores BRI-projects in the Global South, in post-colonial, post-Soviet, and Sino-Indian rivalry political environments: Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, and the Maldives. Even though China's infrastructure initiative put forwards materializations of a capitalist ideology, and resembles parts of the classical-western infrastructure imaginary, China presents itself as a legitimate and benign partner by means of infrastructure narratives.
China's Silk Road narratives have a different function from infrastructure narratives. In selectively using history in China's communications, these narratives conjure up the idea that foreign relations with China are a continuation of the past. These systematic representations of the Silk Road history are associated with China's civilization and the more recent decolonization history. With this communication, China tries to stabilize foreign relations and forge China's identity as a good neighbor, good friend, and good partner.
China's infrastructure and Silk Road narratives are systematic and unique at the same time; China creates bespoke aesthetic productions for specific countries and BRI-projects by selecting, combining, and emphasizing specific infrastructure modalities and Silk Road representations. The empirical findings will show how China's infrastructure narratives in Kyrgyzstan are about taming the environment; in Kenya, they express a modern railway that will improve transport logistics; and in the Maldives, the narratives emphasize that it is a bridge of friendship, a bridge of dreams, and a bridge of convenience. In historicizing foreign relations, China applies representations of the Han and Tang dynasties in its communications to Kyrgyzstan, and representations of the early Ming dynasty in its communications to Kenya and the Maldives.
There are lessons to be learned from China's communication that will be valuable to policy-makers around the world. China has made significant headways with the BRI by ensuring various levels of partnership around the world and completing numerous infrastructure projects. China positions itself as the development and economic partner for a peaceful and prosperous 21st century. What can traditional development partners such as Germany, the UK, the US, and Japan learn from China's communications? This study suggests that, according to China's practices, international political communication on infrastructure development strategies should not only resonate with a target country's identity but also have a historical connection point to stabilize such relations. This communication approach should answer, “how will this infrastructure project contribute to the recipient country's development strategy?” as well as “how is this partnership situated in history”? Infrastructure projects from the EU and other Western-dominated organizations, including the IMF and the World Bank, conjure up memories of “draconian” economic reforms and pro-democracy agendas (Rolland 2017). In addition, colonization and the Cold War complicate the formation of historical narratives for several actors. In that sense, communicating infrastructure and Silk Road narratives is a strategic move by China, because they cannot be imitated in the same way by traditional development partners.
Then, how should traditional development partners respond to the BRI-communication strategies? Potentially, they could choose to align their development strategies with China and frame themselves as “helpers” to China's international development efforts – a practice that is seen already in some western actors’ communications, and in the collaboration with China in third markets. Alternatively, their response could be less direct: they could reframe and narrate their international development strategies in line with local identities, with local infrastructure dreams and desires, and by characterizing its infrastructure plans as a break from the past. Choosing from these options may be a complex task. In case there is a backlash against Chinese construction and financing, due to unsustainable debt and poor construction and standards among others, this situation might give traditional development partners a competitive edge in the long term. But at the same time, it could complicate the future planning of infrastructure development due to the weakened political environments, and the large-scale infrastructures that are not easily removed, repaired, or replaced.
In comparison, there are many opportunities for countries from the Global South to learn from China's communications. For example, they could anchor their relations with other Global South partners to the independence struggles and the non-aligned movement, and by associating infrastructure projects with equity and inclusiveness.
Either way, China's infrastructure and standards-setting power are on the rise, and the power struggle to have the most competitive infrastructure offer will, in parts, be played out in the digital sphere. This is a combination of China gaining voice in the global media environment, and disseminating its own narratives about China, the BRI, and a new type of international relations. Visualizing and digitally communicating infrastructure actions and friendly relations suggests routines. These routines aid China's identity narrative as an infrastructure and standards-setting power and help forge China's friendly and neighborly relations with foreign countries.
China attempts to display a “show of force” and “demonstration of will” by highlighting its infrastructure achievements in Chinese media (Steele 2010, 27). This book will demonstrate how this practice, unintentionally, leads to aesthetic vulnerability; China's communications are “too good to be true” because they are subject to suspicion and fault. Following an aesthetic approach (Bleiker 2001), the empirical studies in this book investigate the gap between China's representations (in digital media) and the infrastructure objects that China seeks to represent (road, railway, bridge etc.). As others have said before me (Freedman 2006), political communication is an uphill battle, but failing to engage in it, especially in the digital age, means a loss of power.
China's communication of Silk Road and infrastructure narratives could be dismissed as metaphor, spin, propaganda, or misinformation. While conducting this research, colleagues often assumed that I would argue that China's communication is either good or bad (examples of dichotomized thinking, see Herdin, Faust, and Chen 2020). Although these assessments of China's communication may be of interest to some scholars, that is not the goal of this book. Instead, this book explores how strategic narratives are used to constitute foreign relations, and give meaning to infrastructure plans. It investigates how China's strategic narratives represent infrastructure actions, conceive China's infrastructure and standards-setting power, and historicize foreign relations. These narratives are strategic in the sense that they are communicated to achieve specific goals; in this case, securing acquiescence, enhancing popularity among foreign audiences, and securing a coherent identity narrative (Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle 2013). International political communication is not the only or the prime factor that conditions the impact of China-backed infrastructure under the umbrella of the BRI. Also, Silk Road and infrastructure narratives are not the only strategic narratives being used. Nevertheless, understanding these communication practices provides valuable insights into China's BRI – the most ambitious infrastructure initiative of the 21st century.
