Connectivity Imperialism and China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Infrastructure, Structural Power, and World Order
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48048/asi.2027.29Keywords:
Connectivity imperialism, Structural power, Belt and road initiative, New imperialism, New silk roadAbstract
This article analyzes China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a tool for establishing structural power within the global framework, exploring how infrastructure and cross-border connectivity are transformed into new manifestations of imperial influence. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has strategically utilized the Belt and Road Initiative to invest in infrastructure, logistics, digital technology, and finance, establishing standards, fostering dependence, and transforming international relations. To encapsulate this dynamic, the article introduces the concept of Connectivity Imperialism, which reinterprets the BRI as a framework of power constructed through networks and delineates how connectivity is transformed into structural dominance across various cooperation initiatives. The concept theoretically integrates global systems theory, new imperialism, and structural power frameworks. Its primary contribution is to elucidate how routes, standards, finance, and data architectures connect partner states into asymmetric interdependence without the need for territorial occupation or direct military coercion. This framework effectively integrates material infrastructure, institutional standard-setting, and discursive legitimation within a cohesive analytical vocabulary. In this regard, the article enhances the current body of research on the Belt and Road Initiative and provides a framework for comprehending modern power dynamics that is not reliant on military might. It also recognizes the limitations of the concept in addressing intra-state resistance and local social dynamics, indicating a need for further research.
Highlights
This article advances Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) studies by proposing Connectivity Imperialism as an analytical lens for understanding how connectivity can become a mechanism of structural power. Drawing on world-systems theory, new imperialism theory, and structural power theory, it shows how infrastructure, finance, digital networks, and institutional standards may produce asymmetric interdependence without territorial occupation or direct military coercion. Rather than viewing the BRI merely as an economic or infrastructure policy, the article foregrounds the political architecture of connectivity and explains how networked cooperation can reproduce influence within the contemporary global order. In doing so, it offers a theoretically grounded framework for analyzing infrastructure-led geopolitical competition and emerging forms of power in the twenty-first century.
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