Constructing American strategic narratives of the Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

This study examines the US foreign policy elites’ strategic narratives of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and how they responded to the Chinese official narratives. In explaining the BRI, a plethora of political science and international relations scholarships has focused on the material aspects or the objective reality of the BRI. Less research has focused on the BRI strategic narratives outside China, especially those countries that are critical of the initiative. The analyses of how the US power elites received and responded to the Chinese Communist Party's BRI narratives are limited. It is important to know how the strategic narratives of the BRI have been constructed in America’s China policy community because it can enable us to understand how the US policy elites interpret the rising China and shape policy agendas in the international system. Narratives are powerful tools for US political actors to shape the discourse of their targeted audience and exert influence in managing China’s rise. Through a critical constructivist and poststructuralist lens, this thesis aims to explore what BRI strategic narratives are formulated by the US political elites; how American political elites construct strategic narratives of the BRI, and what purposes they have on China’s behaviour and identity. My study is mainly based on qualitative narrative analysis of US foreign policy documents, statements, and speeches by top US officials focusing on the BRI and those sources produced by US elite think tanks. This thesis argues that American political elites have constructed their preferred BRI narratives as strategic tools by emphasising specific aspects while downplaying others to delegitimate the BRI, thereby justifying its countermeasures towards it, undermining China’s global influence, and reinforcing the US supremacy in the existing global order.