SEMINAR: China�s Marshall Plan

Since its advent in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been increasingly touted in media reports as ‘China’s Marshall Plan’. Despite these frequent references, there has yet to be an extensive comparative analysis of the BRI and the Marshall Plan. At its inception, the Marshall Plan was unprecedented and is now widely considered one of the most successful US foreign policy initiatives of all time. The BRI is a key element of China’s foreign policy and has been described as the biggest infrastructure-building project in human history. With the BRI being rolled out amidst increasing Chinese strategic competition with the US – likened by some analysts to a ‘new Cold War’ – it has never been more timely to investigate and compare these two hugely ambitious foreign policy initiatives. With China’s rapid rise marking the return of bipolarity in world politics, my research explores the use of economic statecraft within the context of such a fundamental shift in the distribution of power within the international system. In order to adequately compare the BRI to the Marshall Plan, neoclassical realism is employed as the theoretical framework. Neoclassical realism elucidates the systemic, cognitive and domestic variables of great power competition. Accordingly, neoclassical realism allows for the extensive comparative analysis of the Marshall Plan and the BRI on the basis of: the distribution of relative material capabilities in the international system; the impact of political leaders, ideological inclinations and strategic culture on foreign policymaking; and the capacity for the respective great powers to construe or misconstrue the intentions of their chief adversary.