Contested Hegemonies: A Neo-Gramscian Perspective on the Belt and Road Initiative’s “People-to-People Connectivity” (minxin xiangtong) Pillar

• In Event: International Nonprofits and Philanthropy in China, and China "Going Out" Into the World: New Developments and New Perspectives

Abstract

This paper builds on Neo-Gramscian international relations theory to make sense of the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) and its unduly neglected “people-to-people connectivity” (minxin xiangtong) pillar. Chinese foreign policy has long been concerned with countering US hegemony (baquan) in the international system.

However, hegemony, understood from a neo-Gramscian perspective as rule by cultural and intellectual leadership and control over the “common sense”, cannot be limited to the inter-state realm but needs to be constantly reproduced in Civil Society—including intellectuals as well as private organisations. Notably, Civil Society is also the realm where hegemony can be challenged—both internationally and domestically.

Thus, this paper inquires in how far the “people-to-people connectivity” pillar contributes to (counter-)hegemonic legitimation efforts within Civil Society. I argue that the BRI has not been designed primarily to expand Chinese development finance and hard infrastructure investments overseas (as is often claimed) but instead to embed and safeguard these economic trends by providing a legitimacy infrastructure, i.e., contributing to broad-based acquiescence to China’s growing presence in developing countries.

On the other hand, this Civil Society inclusion in foreign policy also offers certain spaces for domestic contestation of the party-state monopoly over the social realm, albeit under increasingly oppressive authoritarian control. Combining the analysis of policy documents and project data with participant observation and interviews with Chinese stakeholders, the paper demonstrates the potential as well as severe limitations to Civil Society legitimation in a firmly authoritarian context.

Bertram Lang, The Transnational Politics of Chinese Philanthropy, PhD dissertation, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2023.
Heike Holbig and Bertram Lang, China's Overseas NGO Law and the Future of International Civil Society, Journal of Contemporary Asia, September 2021.

Author

• Bertram Lang, University of Göttingen