EVENTS

Abstract

In September and October of 2013, Xi Jinping made two important speeches with implications for China’s immediate neighbourhood.  In a speech on 7 September at the Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan he announced the Silk Road Economic Belt (sichouzhilu jingjidai) connecting China with Central Asia and onwards to Europe. This new Economic Belt with Xinjiang at its core is of a piece with similar initiatives such as the BCIM Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the one with probably the greatest promise, at the moment. In late October, Xi also convened the first work forum (zuotan) on diplomacy towards China’s periphery (zhoubian). With a view to consolidating Chinese leadership in the region, he stressed both greater economic integration with the neighbourhood and China’s determination to defend its core interests. Together, these developments seem to constitute the beginnings of a new form of tianxia. It is in the context of these developments that this presentation puts forward some impressions from a conference on the Silk Road Economic Belt held in Urumqi, Xinjiang in June. It also suggests that if New Delhi sees for itself a role as important as China’s in the region and globally, then its actions – whether in the form of new ideas about engagement with its neighbourhood, and how it goes about implementing its foreign policy – raise questions about the nature of its understanding of China’s recent foreign policy activity.

About the Speaker

Jabin T. Jacob is Assistant Director and Fellow at the ICS and, Assistant Editor of the China Report.