Regionalism with Chinese Characteristics: The Belt and Road Initiative, New Narratives and Implications for International Order

Since the late 2000s, following the introduction of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), regional integration or regionalism in Asia entered a new phase. However, developments became another realm for interpreting the competition between the United States and China. In this article, the author seeks to move away from the dominant frameworks of great power competition and geopolitics and to re-examine China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from the perspective of regionalism. Following the progress of regionalism over time –with first wave regionalism centered on functional cooperation in Europe amidst the Cold War and second wave regionalism expanding to intra-regional cooperations outside Europe in the post-Cold War– the author positions the BRI within third wave regionalism, or integration across multiple domains and among regions, and seeks to explain how China is reshaping international order through the BRI. This article draws on trade figures to demonstrate China’s increased influence in the new century and argues that China is reshaping the international order through the BRI by promoting intercontinental integration and new narratives and discourses related to the Global South.