Revisiting China Threat: The US’ Securitization of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’

This article argues that under the Donald Trump administration, American policy towards China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was largely shaped by ‘securitisation’ approach. Accordingly, the discourse of securitisation approach maintained that BRI is inherently and intentionally flawed; it is a gift with ulterior designs; China is undermining the United States’ (US) hegemony in the Indo-Pacific and finally; China on the whole constitutes a threat to American world order. This securitized reaction to the BRI is a significant representation of the broader ‘China Threat’ ethos currently guiding policy discourse in Washington. This paper argues that such a highly securitised perspective of the BRI is untenable on many grounds. Member countries view BRI primarily as an opportunity when fewer alternatives are at hand. The US perspective plays down the ‘agency’ of member countries and their domestic politics which have played key role in evolution of this initiative. Similarly, a securitized response overestimates the BRI threat to American world order while simultaneously ignoring its potential to contribute to Asia’s pressing infrastructure demands. More importantly, this paper contends that the limitations of BRI are actually ‘institutional’ in essence and not the subject matter of security debate.