ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 provides an in-depth analysis of China’s rise as a global power, of its leaders’ views of the present international order, and of related features of the Chinese foreign policy. China as a socializing normative power is then scrutinized. Special attention is paid to its complex normative apparatus that represents the basis of the process of international socialization targeting elites in BRI partner countries. It relies on the peaceful and harmonious Five Principles and one general norm stating that cooperation with China is genuinely beneficial to the target country in general and to its elites in particular. But there are also three subsets of political, economic, and social norms that hardly mirror the Five Principles’ ethical and disinterested outlook. Beijing’s relationship-based model of cooperation targeting ‘contact zones with less powerful actors’ is then analyzed as a way to reshape the international order ‘in subtle, inconspicuous ways.’ The associated construction of the Belt and Road Initiative is presented as ‘globalization with Chinese characteristics.’ Its complex and flexible structure and working – including the ‘globalization from below’ dimension – are presented, as well as the challenges it faces. Finally, the BRI socialization of political elites is analyzed.
