Legitimating the Belt and Road Initiative: evidence from Chinese official rhetoric

This article examines how China sought to externally legitimate the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by means of official rhetoric. The BRI is a notable Chinese policy initiative with a focus on infrastructure provision. It has been gaining traction worldwide but is simultaneously dogged by controversies and contested by a widening array of actors. Departing from the predominant focus on the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the BRI and China, this research focuses on an important yet under-explored aspect: sustained and highly coordinated rhetorical efforts on the part of China with a view to asserting legitimacy for the BRI. Leveraging an analytical framework with fine-grained distinctions between legitimacy types and sources, the study conducted a fully integrated content analysis of 644 Chinese official texts on the BRI. It first identified inductively the set of recurrent legitimacy claims articulated by Chinese officials. A subsequent quantitative analysis showcased how different legitimacy claims featured in the official rhetoric and evolved over time. The findings have practical relevance for China’s external communications on the BRI and foreign actors’ (counter-)narratives and policy responses to the Chinese initiative.