ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the arguments used in the context of theories of hegemonic stability and change are particularly helpful to handle the questions. Capacity building toward new multilateral institutional mechanisms can be interpreted as an outcome of attempting smart power strategies, borrowing Joseph Nye’s pragmatic terminology, during a period of hegemonic change. From an economic perspective, it is not so much surprising that there are parallel mechanisms for handling multilateral challenges, but that there are such mechanisms, and indeed new mechanisms, at all. Hegemonic stability theory deals with how such hegemonic situations evolve or convey some degree of persistence. The chapter explains the development toward new, and often parallel, multilateral cooperation schemes in East Asia and to say something about the likely consequences of the dynamism. We found leadership theory and Nye’s concept of smart power particularly helpful to understand China’s BRI strategy.
