Is the Belt and Road Initiative globalizing China’s national security policy?
Chinese security policy experts use potential threats to BRI projects to highlight the necessity of a globalized security posture. The suicide bomb attack on the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan in August 2016 highlighted China’s rising external vulnerability in a region at the heart of its signature foreign policy project, the Belt and Road Initiative. For the first time, attackers with alleged ties to militant groups in Syria targeted a Chinese mission in Central Asia. This event will speed up the development of a more pronounced Chinese security posture in the region and beyond. While such external events generate immediate attention and force the Chinese leadership to react, the BRI has more important long-term internal effects on the development of China’s global security posture: it helps to channel and focus domestic security debates by providing a reference point and creating a context for concrete policy actions. Anticipating and responding to increasing global vulnerability, the Chinese leadership has more forcefully set out to define China’s role as a global security actor since 2014.
