Keywords

1 Introduction

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping, has thus far neither been a curse nor a blessing for democracy. Instead, China’s BRI activities in over 140 countries worldwide have triggered many global and local movements and initiatives which have led to both stronger autocratisation and democratisation in some regions, such as across Eurasia. The quantity of investments under the BRI is not a determinant of whether a country democratises or autocratises.

The BRI has instead made trade and people-to-people connectivity both more global and local at the same time. Hence, it has to a certain extent glocalised societies along the New Silk Road initiatives worldwide. The investments and development projects have led to modest economic growth and subsequently, albeit unintentionally, to social movements, worker protests, and grassroots initiatives against governments in countries receiving investment. These movements have often been taken down by restrictive and repressive measures by governments, and this has led to political violence. Inside China, the BRI has led to further autocratisation of the autocratic regime, despite the country’s economic growth.

Yet, over the past ten years, China’s global investment policies have triggered infrastructural investments across the Eurasian continent. Along this “New Silk Road Initiative,” Chinese BRI investments have triggered civil society engagements in the form of local protests criticising the practices of Chinese investors and their local counterparts. BRI investments operate based on intergovernmental agreements between the governments of China and the partner country without including local communities, labour unions, or other forms of civil society. This has triggered a plethora of anti-Chinese sentiments and protests, many of which have been violently supressed by local police forces and increasing autocratic ways of governance.

Even though the BRI provides opportunities, jobs, and a decent income for millions of people across the world, it overall follows the purpose of creating an alternative market for China’s vast state-owned companies beyond its borders. Having already seen Chinese government investment of approximately one trillion dollars, however, the initiative has not led to either the global or local stability that the government had anticipated in 2013. Thus, the long-term and sustainable goal of the BRI, namely the return on investments and social peace and stability inside China, as well as in the recipient countries in Eurasia, has not been achieved.

The BRI, as will be argued in this chapter, has turned into a boomerang both for China’s internal social welfare policies and for its foreign policies across the continent. That said, the BRI was never aimed at leveraging democratic movements or institution building. It has instead unintentionally triggered social upheaval against suppressive policies and created anti-Chinese sentiments and, hence, often strengthened autocratic regimes that supressed these sentiments.

China itself is far from building a democratic regime domestically, let alone fostering this in other countries. According to V-Dem’s 2022 report, China is among the most autocratic regimes in the world, next to Afghanistan, Belarus, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Venezuela (Varieties of Democracy, V-Dem, 2022, p. 12). Hence, one of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decisive objectives of the BRI is to increase state-level cooperation between governments, not between civil societies.

The fact that BRI stakeholders only cooperate on a governmental level between states has influenced the autocratisation process in the countries of operation because the focus is on intergovernmental cooperation and multi-level intergovernmental macro policy exchange. Participatory measures, let alone human rights compliance, are not envisioned under the BRI connectivity strategy.Footnote 1

The BRI is thus indirectly strengthening autocratic regimes because most authoritarian governments are predominantly busy with safeguarding their status-quo, albeit while allowing technological innovation and economic development thanks to Chinese billion-dollar programmes in these countries. Apart from the BRI’s effects on modernisation and economic growth; this economic stability also paves the grounds for citizens and workers to engage in civic movements and protests, often against Chinese companies and investors. Therefore, one can argue that the BRI increases political violence and hence autocratic tendencies, as seen in 2022 in Kazakhstan and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

2 China’s White Paper and Democracy that Works

On 4 December 2021, the CCP’s China State Council (CSC) released its White Paper, titled “Democracy that works,” proposing a new model of democracy for China and the world, and at the same time celebrating the centenary of the Party’s foundation in 1921 in Shanghai (China State Council, 2021). The date and the paper’s title were not coincidental. It was a direct response to the upcoming global Summit for Democracy orchestrated by the US Administration in Washington DC on the International Day for Human Rights on 10 December 2021. The paper was therefore a direct response and positioning vis-à-vis the New Cold War rhetoric and the battle between autocratic and democratic systems which has been emerging dramatically in recent years.

A few weeks later, in January 2022, one of China’s strongest allies on the Eurasian continent, the Russian Federation, would send troops to Kazakhstan to crack down on anti-BRI-related protesters, and to thus also protect and safeguard Chinese investments, and a month later would invade Ukraine to protect its own Russian acclaimed assets. These two events are not coincidental and only illustrate the tip of the iceberg. China has played a vital role in the war between Russia and Ukraine, precisely because of its BRI investments, both in Kazakhstan and in Ukraine, and the potential loss of these.

The much-praised connectivity between Europe and China, via Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan, has suffered significantly in 2022. Under the BRI, a direct freight train linking Ukraine with China began operating in 2021, with significant impact on the development of trade relations,Footnote 2 and for that reason, the Ukraine had been a success story for China’s BRI development strategy, and a win–win situation for Ukrainians because of its geopolitical proximity to Europe and Central Asia. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Ukraine-China trade increased annually by almost 50% to (approximately12 billion Euro) in 2021 and provided people with prospects in the region, allowing them to turn even more strongly towards Europe and EU membership.

Across the Eurasian stretch, BRI investments have set free resources and energy for people and, for those not governed by a suppressive autocratic regime, allowed them to opt for a democratic model of governance, as in the case of the Ukraine. Not surprisingly, across the heartland of the BRI’s “Iron Railroad” project which connects China with the European Union (EU) via Central Asia and Russia, unrest has been triggered by civil society and governments alike.

The Chinese government has long acknowledged that it cannot detach itself from global dynamics if it wants to become an even stronger global player and, hence, has to embrace elements of democracy, sustainability, and even human rights. Thus, in the White Paper the CCP and CSC even confirm that democracy is a “humanity's universal desire.” This illustrates the degree of domestic pressure the CCP faces on democratic matters, forcing it to respond, albeit only in words not in actions. Redefining the notion of democracy, in the CCP’s view, is the only way out. The paper thus states that “Democracy is a common value of humanity and an ideal that has always been cherished by the CCP and the Chinese people, focusing on 'people's democracy with the will of the state.' According to the CCP, this is a model of socialist democracy that covers all aspects of the democratic process and all sectors of society. It is a' true democracy that works” (CSC, 2021, White Paper, Preamble).

Whereas previous, similar White Papers (see article by Holbig in this edition) focused exclusively on progress and development, this one focuses on the mode of democratic governance and outlines how strong centralistic but consultative leadership is the most effective form of governance under the CCP’s terms. Building consensus with and among citizens and other stakeholders is not anticipated in the paper and fair, free, and competitive elections are not mentioned at all. Instead, the paper defines how decision-making processes and leadership succession occur without elections or a competitive multi-party system. By its own definition, Chinese “democracy” is top-down steering of public affairs and hence the opposite of a liberal and competitive democratic regime steered by civil society and consensus building.

Since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he has centralised power around the presidency and himself, with the BRI as the centre-point and legendary vision for his lifetime rulership (Zhou, 2012). Nevertheless, the power shift in Beijing started out promisingly, exhibiting signs of modest liberal change around 2012. This marked a short period of illusive liberation, as the government soon became even more autocratic. It eventually closed the country to foreign influence, reaching its peak during the 2020–2022 pandemic, fuelling the rivalries between China and Western liberal democratic standards.

During the light “spring of democracy” in the aftermath of the Beijing Olympic games in 2008 and Xi’s nomination in 2012, citizens became organised, launched local campaigns and grassroots movements, and even competed for seats in various local congresses. Public, local or virtual, debates about the pros and cons of democracy and human rights emerged everywhere on China’s popular webspace Weibo but were soon censored by the state’s Internet Police even more harshly than before (Liu & Chen, 2012).

These activities and attempts to democratise disappeared soon after 2012 as Xi Jinping came into power claiming that only a strict, top-down mode of governance could bring stability, order, and prosperity to the country. Ever since, human rights defenders, lawyers, climate activists, bloggers, and academics have been systematically imprisoned and censored more strongly than before, and members of ethnic and Muslim minorities have been suffering from systematic persecution and even extinction. The toxic mix of propaganda, manipulation, nationalism, and suppression has turned China today into one of the world’s leading autocracies, with a dismal record of human rights abuses, including crimes against humanity and genocide (V-Dem, 2022).

Since coming to power, Xi has aimed to strengthen his own autocratic regime as well as those elsewhere. In a major speech to the nation in 2017, he outlined how the overall “deficit in governance” in democratic countries shows that the classical world order based on sovereign independent and democratic countries cannot deal with global challenges such as climate change or global markets. Moreover, he argued that liberal democracy and civil society are not the answers to rectify any deficits in governance, but a strong centralistic nation-state is. He calls this centralistic state an “organic whole” between government and citizens and thus a regime that can work towards mutual benefits and win–win-situations for all and among different nations (Wang, X. 2019, pp. 58–59).

How an “organic whole” government operates was illustrated in the shocking 2018 report on the systematic and widespread discrimination and elimination of the ethnic Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang province in Eastern China. The fact that the region borders Central Asian countries and hosts the entry port of the BRI “Iron Railroad” project towards the EU is of significance. To terrorise and eliminate the minorities in the region who might become an obstacle to the BRI’s success via uprisings against the regime has been part of the CCPs centralistic nation building from the beginning. The fact that the CCP is a strictly monoethnic Han Chinese regime that cannot tolerate self-determination of ethnic and religious minorities has long been underestimated.

Ever since the 2018 report and media coverage have shown how China has broken its international commitments and human rights agreements not only to the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, to which the country is a signatory, but to other human rights treaties as well, the regime has strengthened its autocratisation (Amnesty International, 2022).

The fact that Western China’s Xinjiang province is the crossroads and main entry point for Chinese products to Europe, and hence the BRI’s gate to the West, plays a vital role in understanding the curse and blessings of BRI in Eurasia. The “port to Europe” at Khorgos, at the border between Kazakhstan and China, is the starting point for Chinese products running through Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine into Europe. Hence, governance of Xinjiang province and the Eurasian corridor will also determine the success of BRI and thus the future fate of the government in Beijing.

The Khorgos-Gateway also allows for high-level corruption, trafficking of all goods, and organised crime. It is at this very crossing point that the BRI has become a “curse and blessing” for political regimes and people, which has not gone unnoticed by other key economic players within the EU and the G7.

However, despite these facts, it took the EU until 2020 to establish a resilience plan vis-à-vis the BRI. Three days before the White Paper was released in December 2021, the EU launched the Global Gateway Initiative (GGI). The GGI is defined as a global development, investment, and democratisation programme. It is the direct countermeasure to BRI investments, but with the important difference that the GGI also promotes democratic institution building and civil society.

The GGI was the EU’s long-awaited response to the BRI, announced in July 2021 when 27 European foreign ministers agreed to set in motion a new global connectivity strategy to rival China’s approach to Europe; followed by a unified proposal by the G7. The G7, in which neither China nor Russia are members, announced a joint “Build Back Better World” communique and alternative infrastructure initiative driven by the major Western democracies vis-à-vis the BRI. Together with the GGI as a “geostrategic and global approach to connectivity,” the Better World programme is in a race against time with the BRI. The 300 billion Euro GGI is announcing infrastructural and development programmes around the world, but also focusing on “[…] smart investments in quality infrastructure, respecting the highest social and environmental standards, in line with the EU's democratic values and international norms and standards” (EU GGI, 2021). The EU initiatives and responses to China’s White Paper on Democracy can be interpreted as a strike against the dramatic autocratisation of regimes across Eurasia and within the EU, for example Hungary, wherever China is investing. These countermeasures aim to combine development, human rights, and democracy more strongly than in previous agreements with governments along the “Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor.” Whether this is realistic remains to be seen.

But these development have been well-noted across the world, when On the eve of International Human Rights Day on 10 December 2021, the Summit for Democracy in Washington DC was launched, initiated by the US President as a strike against Russia’s and China’s rapid autocratisation, At the same time, the EU Commission launched parallel to the GGI, the Global Europe Human Rights and Democracy Programme. It is worth 1.5 billion Euros and is planned to operate until 2027, investing in democratic institution building in Eurasia in particular—even before the Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. For decades, the EU has been the most prominent supporter and donor in promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms and democratic institution building worldwide, but it has had to step up its volume in the light of the BRI’s approach inside Europe and with EU member states over the recent years. The EU programmes focus on the universality of human rights as enshrined in the UN treaties and the SDGs aiming to build grassroots movements wherever the EU is investing or granting funds along the GGI (European Commission, 2021).

In contrast to the European and US efforts to strengthen democratic institutions in their own countries, no such democracy promotion is found either within the BRI connectivity strategy or in the CCPs White Paper, despites CCPs written commitment to democracy. There, it states instead that, “In China, human rights are fully respected and protected. Living a life of contentment is the ultimate human right. […] The people have gained a stronger sense of fulfilment, happiness, and security. Their rights to subsistence, development, and health are fully protected, and their economic, political, cultural, social, environmental, and other rights keep expanding” (CSC, 2021, White paper, IV. Extensive Rights of People, Democracy that Works).

The CCPs approach seems cynical in the light of the plethora of reports on the atrocities and disappearances, and even genocide, happening inside China. Instead, the quote illustrates the repetitive effort of the regime to legitimise itself through fake democratic and human rights claims. This brings to mind the failed attempt to turn France into a democracy in the eighteenth century which allowed the usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, to launch a successful coup d’état in 1799 against the fragile democratic regime in Paris. Bonaparte then issued a series of plebiscites and support rallies, fuelling nationalistic, and xenophobic sentiments that enabled him to represent himself as the embodiment of popular sovereignty under the national will. Bonaparte subsequently consolidated his totalitarian regime by perfecting the centralised bureaucracy that allowed him to be the genuine representative of popular sovereignty. (Richter, 1982). In this way, Bonaparte, who was of no royal blood line, created a new regime type beyond legitimacy, an illegitimate regime based on fear and suppression. This is similar to what can be—not only—seen in China today, as the CCP redefines democracy in its own terms absent the will of the people, with the objective of falsely legitimising and illegitimate regime.

3 Europe’s Response to the BRI

EU accession and applicant countries such as Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Ukraine, and Georgia, as well as EU member states such as Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Poland, and even Italy, a G7 nation, have benefited from BRI investments since bilateral agreements with China were signed in 2015. The China-Ukrainian-Hungarian-Serbian Railway was the first of many Iron Belt projects under the BRI. This railroad, which crosses Ukraine, carries up to 80% of land container transport from China to Europe and highlights the devastating impact that the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian war has on the BRI (Wang, J. 2019, p. 242).

Hence, it was only a matter of time that the EU would react to the BRI as a competitor, not only economically but also politically with China’s influence in Europe undermining democratic norms. In 2020, the EU started to establish an initial modest resilience plan against the rise of illegitimate regimes and the rapid autocratisation processes elsewhere in the world. Modest, because the EU focused primarily on its own territory and potential accession countries, such as Ukraine, Serbia, and others. The new head of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, highlighted that the EU had to more strongly defend its principles and values, above all democracy and human rights, under a new EU Democracy Action Plan. This became a new programme with the title “Making EU democracies stronger” in 2021. Together with the GGI and the other initiatives, this programme highlights that “[…] free media and civil society must be able to participate in an open debate, free from malign interference. Therefore, the EU is taking action to make our democracies in the EU more resilient” (EU Commission Action Plan 2020).

The EU has, since 1999, invested in Strategic Partnerships and Cooperation Agreements along the BRI, but with less focus on democracy prior to 2020. With the global energy crisis most likely to intensify in the next decade, and Russia’s decline as a geopolitical leader in Eurasia after the war in Ukraine, the Central Asia’s gas and oil fields and hydropower energy supplies will be of interest to any external investor. The EU Interim Agreement on Trade and Trade-Related Matters, for example, has already brought forth a close investment partnership in Eurasia as part of the GGI with a focus on the importance of the rule of law and human rights.

While the EU Commission has often not gone beyond lip-service in favour of human rights and democratisation prior to 2021, the EU Parliament is now taking on more of a role as a human rights reminder. The parliament has responded to severe breaches of democratic principle and human rights standards related to the BRI in Central Asia and elsewhere. After the Kazakh government crackdown on protesters in 2022, protests which were related to heavy anti-Chinese sentiment and BRI investment in the region, the EU parliament raised concerns and called for upholding the rule of law in the country. Kazakhstan’s roles include a geopolitical corridor, port to Europe, breadbasket, and energy supplier for China. It is host to the main container and train terminal in Dostyk (“friendship”) in Khorgos at the Chinese-Kazakh border which handles rail freight traffic of over 500 thousand containers per year from China to Europe. Fewer containers go in the other direction from Europe to China. Kazakhstan is a key partner for Chinas BRI and the first country in which President Xi announced the BRI during his state visit in 2013. Hence, the country is vital to the EU’s plans to foster democracy and human rights vis-à-vis the BRI, something which it had already highlighted in the 2019 EU-Central Asia Strategy paper.

The political violence in 2022 was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of anti-governmental uprisings and anti-Chinese sentiments in the region. With the economy and energy crisis coming to a peak in 2021 as a result of the pandemic, which has also increased corruption and autocratic leadership, protests took place against Chinese companies, their work ethics, and blackmail practices on the one hand, and the apathy and silence of their governments vis-à-vis Chinese investors on the other. This is what erupted into mass protests in the Kazakh metropole and economic centre of the country, Almaty, in January 2022. The week-long protests left more than 400 people dead and thousands of people in prison. Chinese President Xi stressed that China firmly opposed protests that attempted to harm the “Chinese-Kazakh friendship” after protesters pointed to China as the root cause for the conflict in the first place, a root which revealed the long-simmering anger over corruption, nepotism, rising inequality, and economic hardship in the country (Toktomushev, 2022).

The EU parliament condemned the political violence and repressive measures taken against the protesters, highlighting that it “ […] stands together with the people of Kazakhstan, who should fully enjoy the right to organize a peaceful rally in protest against the lack of reforms in Kazakhstan and in defence of a prosperous future for the country; strongly condemns the dramatic and continually deteriorating situation of human rights in Kazakhstan, including of freedom of expression and labour and social rights […]” (European Parliament, 2022). The response showed that, despite China’s heavy investment in the region, and its reliance on building solid relationships with the governments of post-soviet countries such as in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, and Ukraine, it did not mitigate the belligerent public sentiments and get the much-desired legitimate support for their prosperity and efficiency based “working democracy” from the citizens in the region (Adnan, 2020). China’s President Xi, fearing the loss of significant influence over this vital geopolitical ally in Central Asia and over China’s gateway to Europe, announced the renewal of Chinese ties with the region and his plan to visit Kazakhstan again in 2022.

4 The Glocal Response to the BRI

The New Cold War between democratic and autocratic political regimes is on and, sadly enough, one of its first hot war outbreaks happened in a BRI stronghold country, Ukraine, after the aggressive invasion by Russia in 2022. This invasion was led by Russian President Putin, who like Xi, views democracy as a domestic and global threat. This turns this war into a proxy war between autocratic and democratic systems. Moreover, this war is the first glocal one, in which global democratic norms are defended by local, private, multi-stakeholder, and non-state actors alike (Mihr, 2021). The Ukrainian forces are receiving mass support from private donors from across the globe, from millionaires to celebrities and civil society who have donate money and supplies. On the ground, there are also private rescue teams and warfare donors and an international battalion composed of fighters from around the globe. International and private aid and human rights organisations have individualised the war by holding solely one aggressor, namely Russian President Vladimir Putin, responsible for the war and not the Russian people as such. This is quite rare in the history of wars, although the British governments had attempted to do earlier calling Napoleons invasions in Europe, the “Napoleonic Wars” in the Nineteenth century, and during World War I, calling it an “industrial war” in which all sides are victims of senseless killings. But after the war this narrative vanished and changed into an aggressor war by the German Empire at that time, holding the whole nation accountable for it.

But this Ukrainian war has become more of a glocal warfare because private actors and civil society is greatly involved. Local and private initiatives justify their involvement by invoking global democratic norms, highlighting the need to help in a war against a state aggressor (Mihr, 2022).

In the same vein, the local and private response to the globalised economy has turned much of the local response to the BRI into a glocal one. The fact that many local communities, civil societies, labour unions, mayors, and businesses have withstood the autocratic way the BRI is governed on an inter-state level undermines the concept of territorial nation-states and state sovereignty in a way we have not seen before. The Chinese government fears global democracy as a threat because it erodes their state from the inside, even while the survival of a state depends on adaptation to global and local challenges. The CCP, in this case, is responding to the threat of global democracy through its White Paper, hoping that real democratic upheaval in China will not occur.

Yet at the same time, during the Democracy Summit in December 2021, the list of invitees of national, international, local, and private actors and leaders, underlining multi-stakeholder initiatives, was more than symbolic. It emphasises the claim that the future of democratic regimes is based on glocal governance, and so the International Day of Human Rights on December 10 was chosen as the meeting date. This was a response by the US President and the EU to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s statement earlier that year in January 2021 that, “Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is wrong. What has happened proves that the US attempt to suppress China and start a new Cold War has not just seriously harmed the interests of the two peoples, but also caused severe disruptions to the world […]”Footnote 3 The Summit participants highlighted that the backsliding of democracies is ongoing as democratic regimes have begun illiberalizing, failing, becoming populist, nationalising, unconsolidating, and becoming otherwise dysfunctional, particularly across Eurasia in the light of the BRI.

After a talk with President Xi in March that year, the US president announced a counter initiative to the BRI with a focus on strengthening democratic procedures, as a joint answer “[…] pulling from the democratic states, helping those communities around the world that in fact need help,” (Reuters, 2021). Eventually, the EU launched the GGI and the US the New Global Deal (NGD) to bring democratic welfare states back in. It is not a coincidence that war in Ukraine broke out shortly after the Western allies announced economic and state building measures against autocratic regimes, such as Russia and China, in December 2021.

Although one cannot ignore the fact that some countries in Eurasia have been economically successful in the short run despite not following democratic and human rights principles—these include states such as Serbia, Belarus, Russia, Turkey, and some Central Asian countries—ten years after the BRI launched, these same countries show significant economic decline and regime instability. Their regimes lack legitimacy and need to invest endless resources and energy into keeping their non-legitimate autocratic regimes up and running. This is true even when they are launching a brutal war against neighbouring states and no matter how wealthy their leadership or how well distributed the wealth is in society.

Meanwhile, the CCP does what it always does, namely to legitimise its non-legitimate regime democratic wordings. In the White Paper, one can read about the response of the CCP to a competitive, liberal, and collaborative democratic model, namely that “China's electoral system is adapted to the country's national conditions, dependent on the stage of socio-economic development.” Since there are no competitive and free political parties or presidential elections in China, the electorate and participatory rights are only among the members within the Communist Party, and they follow a strictly hierarchical order of nomination instead of election.

Hence, the Chinese statement in favour of elections only refers to a partisan group of party members and delegates to the National People’s Congress that meets once a year in Beijing. Nevertheless, the CCP insists that “all citizens who have reached the age of 18, except those persons deprived of political rights following the law, have the right to vote and stand for election” (CCP 2021, White Paper, Democracy, III. Concrete and Pragmatic Practice, 1. Democratic Elections).

Even when democratic practices take place in countries where BRI investments are strong, such a glocal and multi-stakeholder approach can never fully replace a specific regime type, but it can complement dysfunctional regimes, no matter how authoritarian or democratic they may be. Glocal governance initiatives adhere to universal principles and global standards, such as freedom of assembly, fair elections, and freedom of the media and enact these locally. For example, when global supply chain rules are applied, anti-corruption measures sanction de facto corrupt and autocratic practices. European countries and institutions have, since the 1990s, experimented with these types of local ownership, citizen dialogues, public–private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder initiatives to enhance democratic performance and resilience alongside its funding and investment policies (Mihr, 2022). Despite the fact that there is much room for improvement in the implementation of these measures, there has been a start in the correct direction via the proliferation of the multi-stakeholder approach within and outside the EU. Glocalisation has also produced various kinds of inter-municipal, metropolitan, and asymmetric governance arrangements, and thereby has increased the occurrence of differentiated government in the EU. Governments have changed roles from that of direct service providers to that of enablers, advisors, and facilitators, which requires new capacities at the central level (Charlie Jeffery and John Peterson, 2020, p. 763). Ultimately, this paradigm shift in governance has increased ownership over production and well-being and hence satisfaction among people on the community level. The people receive a regular and transparent response from local authorities and, in reverse, are willing to compromise and negotiate standard rules for all.

Morlino et al. (2020) observed the localisation of democratic practices within the EU and assert that state governments are no longer critical holders of sovereign power, something which can also be seen in other BRI-related countries. Instead, the authors argue that, if state authorities are no longer capable of balancing people’s desire for freedom and equality in general as well as in terms of economic investments and development, the idea of the multi-class state will begin to take hold, reflecting a wish for autonomy and the organisation of forces arising from civil society, as seen in Kazakhstan and Ukraine in 2022. Democratic power in the traditional sense of representative democracy declines, but the desire for technical-scientific expertise rises. This means that the democratic deficit and backsliding must be compensated for in other ways, namely through procedural multi-level, stakeholder participation.

In 2004, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—of which China is not officially a member—had already been alert to the changing paradigms and connectivity between economic growth and local ownership (and hence democracy), establishing Principles of Corporate Governance and providing guidelines for the evaluation of practical policy impacts through a multi-stakeholder approach. Private or corporate actors enjoy political legitimacy if they provide public services to communities without an effective government. They focus on the links between globally agreed upon standards, values, and mechanisms around CSOs, and national governments and businesses.

Chinas’ way of governing the BRI, however, is far from any multi-stakeholder approach or public–private partnership. Instead, China counts on top-down state-controlled implementation mechanisms absent consensus building with local stakeholders, and there is little evidence that this will change. Huang et al. (2016) argue that, despite China’s modernisation and internationalisation, the education and economic sector has remained unchanged, and has thus made China neither global nor local, but has instead strengthened their centralistic approach to governance. Because of the strict top-down governmental approach, the mindset of the people has not changed despite the influx of international standards, norms, and even products, movies, or cultural practices. Global trade, let alone BRI initiatives, has not made the Chinese system more adaptive or competitive because the education system and the governance regime remain autocratic. Instead, the BRI revenues have made the rich richer while making the poor poorer, resulting in corruption, injustice, and a lack of local participation in China (Huang et al., 2016).

At the same time, the Chinese government has shown a serious lack of control over the public sector despite its heavy investments in G5 technology, smart cities, and cyber-surveillance, using more and more political violence and suppression to compensate for governmental failure in this area (Mihr, 2017). This lack of control over domestic affairs also affects its control over BRI investments, which can lead to uncontrolled outbreaks and often violent protests. Chinese companies and domestic governments encounter opposition along the BRI, as in Kazakhstan and, since 2018, in Myanmar, Belarus, and Pakistan (Nalbandov, 2014). Instead of turning Eurasia into a new “Sinostan” through the BRI as Xi anticipated in 2013 and 2017, the badly governed BRI has become a boomerang for the CCP which has led people to turn against their own governments inside and outside China. Even though most of these protests have been shut down by armed forces and have led to stronger autocratisation of rulership via the implementation of draconic measures to pacify the population, such events will, soon or later, destabilise a country from the bottom up (Pantucci & Petersen, 2022).

As stated earlier, glocal movements and initiatives are not an alternative to democracy but often work hand in hand with democratic movements, and hence not in direct competition with any specific political regime type per se. The glocalisation of regimes is emerging to the extent to which governments fail to exercise their obligations towards their citizens. Glocal governance is grassroot and community driven and strengthens weak democratic institutions because it legitimises its governors.

The 2012 UNDP report on “Good Governance and Development in the World” already emphasised that the methodological concepts for assessing governance policies are too short-sighted to understand economic growth or societal development. Against that backdrop, some authors have argued that the BRI was never meant to trigger global growth and development outside China—let alone a specific regime type—but has always been a purely domestic policy tool to prevent unemployment and economic decline and thus to avoid social uprisal and instability within China (Jiang, 2021).

Thus, the BRI may trigger bottom-up uprisal, protests, and democratic initiatives inside and outside China, as has occurred in Xinjiang province and in the neighbouring states of Kazakhstan and Myanmar where people have been claiming more democratic options in their fight against local corruption, mismanagement, and bad governance practices that arise from BRI-related investments and businesses. Though Xi’s initiative for development may never have anticipated it, interestingly enough, glocalisation of private initiatives and governance picked up speed with the start of the BRI.

5 The BRI’s Impact on Governance

A year after the BRI was launched, in 2014, President Xi undertook a state visit to Europe. While addressing the EU, he highlighted that all that mattered was the outcome of the BRI, not the way it was governed, stating “The fruit may look the same, but the taste is quite different.”Footnote 4 The same ideas can be found in the 2021 White Paper in which Xi does not discredit the innovations, technology, or even Western lifestyle, but objects to any liberal, consensus building democratic way in which these achievements are governed. That a free society and technical innovation are closely intertwined is not what autocrats tend to believe.

China’s ability to copy Western lifestyles in all aspects of architecture, technology, and culture is breath-taking, particular with respect to its disregard for the fact that further progress and development of this lifestyle is only achievable in a free, fair, and inclusive society. Even redefining human rights as “extensive rights,” as was done in the most recent White Paper, will not defer from the problem of poor governance. The White Paper states, “China has completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The entire country has shaken off absolute poverty and embarked on common prosperity. […] Their rights to subsistence, development and health are fully protected, and their economic, political, cultural, social, environmental, and other rights keep expanding” (CCP, 2021, White Paper, IV. Democracy That works, 1. Extensive Rights.).

From the start, China has taken the “New Cold War” more seriously than democratic regimes in Europe or North America, whether for reasons of Western hypocrisy or simply because Western governments underestimated the threat that a democratic lifestyle and fundamental freedoms can pose to autocratic leaders. For autocratic leaders, all that matters is stability so as to ensure the survival of their own rulership, no matter the cost. This survival mode can never be up for election, free choice, or deliberation. Any governance model that could successfully compete with a one-party or strongman leadership style is a potential threat—regardless of the “taste of the fruit.”

As stated earlier, the regime in Beijing is a fragile and often toxic mixture of Han-Nationalism paired with contradictory ideological foundations in Socialism and Capitalism and a de facto one-party rulership under a life-long head of the party. President Xi is following this exclusive doctrine of “national capitalist driven communism” and the superiority of the Han Chinese as the “organic whole.”

With the country’s closure during the pandemic years from 2020 to 2022 and the Russian War in Ukraine in 2022, President Xi has felt internal and external pressure in terms of the need to legitimise his regime, and retaliation and hostile moves against neighbour states in Asia and the West, and above all towards the United States, have intensified. At the same time, a top-down Cancel Culture rally has gained speed within the country, replacing anything foreign and Western with “Chinese characteristics.” One way of doing this is by using the artificial intelligence-driven Social Scoring System and surveillance technology to dismantle so-called unicorn companies such as Huawei and Alibaba. Many of these are global players who represent a Western capitalistic mentality and more diverse and participatory forms for governance both inside and outside China.

BRI’s success has instead increased anti-Western sentiments in China. Anything Western, even leisure culture, ought to be reinterpreted as Chinese. Any sympathy for glocalisation, democracy, or human rights must be replaced by Han-patriotism in the form of a pseudo-religious mix between ideology and personal identity for which many people are willing to sacrifice their lives. For some, China has become a “fearful giant” with a powerful BRI toolbox providing instruments which can influence modes of governance elsewhere in the world, but many of these measures seem to become a boomerang for China. If the government can no longer keep people satisfied through economic growth, the way BRI is governed could potentially boomerang to China because it is becoming disconnected to its main markets in Europe and the US. Unrest and turmoil inside and outside its borders are already starting to grow.

The CCPs slogan “Development for China and the World” (sic),Footnote 5 leaves no. room for interpretation, meaning that China comes first before the rest of the world. This slogan justifies the privileges that the Han Chinese enjoy over others and lead to over 80% support rate for the government—even by critical standards. It is unclear, however, how long this can be sustained in times of rapid decline of domestic economy and rise of civil unrest. Furthermore, the CCP aims to reclaim control over the economy at the same time as cleansing the country of any political opponents, including former CEOs of global businesses, many of whom have taken lead roles under the BRI.

China’s technical modernisation, its openness towards technology, mobility of its people, and Western style architecture, belies the autocratic style of government. Instead, the strict state control is the engine for the permanent technological advancements which keep people happy. “Smart refrigerators,” e-cars, the newest versions of smart phones, and rapid transport of fresh vegetables from the vast steppes of Inner Mongolia to all corners of the country provide the illusion of a progressive state and ever-caring government. The latest governmental economic intervention “Made in China 2025,” aimed at increasing the domestic Chinese proportion of core materials to 70% by 2025, however, illustrates that the BRI has not achieved the goals that Xi anticipated in 2013.

President Xi has repetitive emphasised his nation’s urge to overcome the indignation and humiliation suffered at the hands of the West in the late nineteenth century, and one way of doing so is via the massive modernisation of the country (Fenby, 2017). This indignation is deeply ingrained in the people’s mind and kept vividly alive through propaganda and education. It should thus not be underestimated as a key driving force in the support for the autocratic regime. The more state propaganda fuels this perception of the past, the more people will be alienated from the concept of a pluralist and liberal Western democracy. Even though history may repeat itself and propaganda sooner or later must meet reality, it has thus far been successful at keeping the country stable.

The concern that China will draw on BRI resources and “befriend” country’s governments in Eurasia to resolve domestic turmoil is not far-fetched. China already holds a military base in Tajikistan to monitor the corridor and conflicts between Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and de facto owns and controls territorial enclaves, declared as “special economic zones” in Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Belarus, and elsewhere.

Many countries across Eurasia depend heavily on BRI investments, but this is especially true of its close’s neighbours in Central Asia, such as Kazahkstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. China has actively been involved in security measures in Afghanistan both during and after the withdrawal of NATO allies 2021; and engages in regular casualty-causing military border conflicts with India in the Kashmir region. At the same time, China has become the fifth-largest arms exporter in the world overall, with particular export focus into conflict regions in Asia and Central Europe (Seekins, 2021). The genocide against Muslim minorities and the coup d’état in Myanmar in 2018 and 2020 was partly influenced by China and linked directly to the BRI (US Institute for Peace, 2018).

6 Conclusion

China’s BRI is neither a curse nor blessing for democracies, and Europe’s response illustrates only one aspect of the global reactions to the way China’s investments trigger local and social unrest in countries in which investments are made. For some countries, BRI investments have led to a modest economic growth and a stronger middle class, which has led to a growth in civil society calling for democratic reforms. In others, local unrests have led to more strongly repressive and autocratic regimes. Nevertheless, there is no direct causal link between the BRI and democratic movements on the one side or stronger autocratisation on the other. What can be highlighted instead, is a line of intriguing correlations between BRI investments and autocratic governing styles, social unrest, and political violence.

For China itself, the BRI is becoming a boomerang. Instead of consolidating its own political regime and strengthening social stability, the CCP must now use more political force, surveillance, and resources than ever before to keep the country stable, even issuing a White Paper on democracy to fooling the world and to keep the Chinese people calm. The beneficial returns from the BRI, namely “to first stabilize China, then the World” are far from real. Now that trillions of dollars have been invested across the world however, the Chinese government cannot easily withdraw from these investments.

While many BRI partner governments, such as Kazakhstan and Belarus, have outmanoeuvred the influx of democratic liberal ideas from the West, and have become more authoritarian or autocratic, others, who have been open and responsive to a more vigorous and educated middle class, thanks to the BRI, often find themselves in internal turmoil, and even wars over democratic norms, as is the case for Ukraine.

Again, it is difficult to directly link the BRI to political regime change, but intriguingly enough, the higher the amount of BRI investment in a country, the higher the likeliness of social unrest and political violence. Countries such as Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, and many across Central Asia and Southeast Asia, such as Thailand and Myanmar, have benefited from the modest development and wealth that the BRI brought, but at the same time face serious political turmoil, violence, and even (domestic) war.

Despite China’s strict non-interference policy in the public affairs of other countries, its influence has changed the infrastructure landscape of BRI partner countries and connected them to the world through its exports, for example, via the 5th generation of mobile networks and Internet, 5G technology.

The CCP insists on its position that “External interference and democratic transformation bring nothing but endless trouble. China never seeks to export the Chinese model of democracy, nor does it allow any external force to change it under any circumstances. It firmly supports the independent choice by every country of its own path to democracy and opposes any interference in others' internal affairs on the pretext of 'bringing democracy” (CSC, 2021, White Paper, V. A New Model for Democracy, 2 Following the Most Suitable Path to Democracy). Nevertheless, China’s government can no longer deny that political turmoil in recipient countries of their investments is not always under their control.

Circumstances are likely to change following Russia’s war in the Ukraine and the resultant shift of hegemonic powers on the Eurasian continent, with China taking the lead in the East over the “BRI countries”—despite its many shortcomings—and the EU acting as the lead governing power in the West through a yet to be tested GGI.