Nigeria

Nigerian democracy is particularly vexing for Chinese efforts to promote the New Silk Road as a pan-African venture. Beijing wants Nigeria to become a keystone of South-South alliances that can challenge Western control over the international system. But China’s disruptive presence has engendered resentment across Africa. Instead of developing into a showcase of Sino-African collaboration, Nigeria seemed to confirm fears that China would be another domineering empire subverting native industries. Fearing a failure that could reverberate throughout Africa, China’s leaders scrambled to show their commitment to Nigerian industrialization. Beijing boosted investments in infrastructure and energy and, then, pledged to relocate factories and technology to make Nigeria an export platform for manufacturing. China’s willingness to take on greater risks stemmed from its conviction that Nigeria was important not only for Africa, but also for appealing to Latin America where economic nationalists voiced similar accusations that China stifled independent development.

Iran

The recent uprisings in Iran provide a poignant example of a common dilemma in authoritarian regimes. The mullahs and security forces can contain the blazes with Chinese-inspired controls over the internet and social media, but they cannot prevent future ignitions or rule out a wider conflagration. On the other hand, reformers have little hope of winning meaningful freedoms or promoting a less adventurous foreign policy. There is no sign of an authoritarian silver bullet to quash unrest or of a revolutionary breakthrough that could propel the country in a new direction. As Beijing expands the New Silk Road, it confronts similar problems in one country after another. Stronger linkages between domestic politics and transnational relations promote ongoing turmoil and crisis management across interdependent regions and cultures. Although this represents an important surge in transcontinental connectivity, it is hardly the kind that Chinese planners anticipated.

Megaregions and Coevolution in World Politics

The rise of the New Silk Road is generating fierce debates over the emergence of new megaregions and their role in reshaping world politics. Chinese writers are avid consumers of and contributors to these discussions both at home and internationally. China’s growing interest in megaregional integration accompanied a sharp turn in foreign policy—from a defensive posture that feared provoking war with the United States toward a bold campaign to assert global leadership, economically and diplomatically. Gradually, Chinese leaders are beginning to realize that all of the emerging megaregions are developing lives of their own that cannot be directed by a hierarchical network centered in Beijing. This realization is forcing China’s policymakers to reconsider their traditional assumption that sovereignty belongs only to formal governments and the elites that control them rather than to the all of the citizens who comprise the national communities.

Introduction

AMERICA’S ATTENTION IS RIVETED on China and Islam—and in both cases the dominant emotion is fear. Some of this is fear of the unknown, but much of it stems from the half-truths and distortions we have created in our minds and media, particularly about the China Threat and Islamic Terrorism. A powerful segment of American policymakers and scholars is urging the country to prepare for supposedly inevitable wars with Chinese and Muslim enemies or to admit that the battles have already begun despite denials on all sides. Predictions of conflict usually rest on faulty assumptions about China’s relentless drive for international dominance, Islam’s inherent belligerence, and history’s verdict that major shifts in the balance of power trigger disastrous military responses....

Indonesia

With Indonesia, the Chinese are doubly vulnerable. Racial and religious prejudice against Indonesians of Chinese descent threatens both government and private business deals. At the same time, Jakarta is determined to project maritime power and to lead the creation of a broader Pacific community—ambitions that openly contradict China’s desire for preeminence in East Asia. Indonesian politicians can use the threat of Islamic militancy to great advantage, seeming to restrain it when Beijing is pliable and quietly encouraging it when China becomes overbearing. President Joko Widodo skillfully challenges China on maritime disputes while enlisting its economic support to fend off hard-line Muslims and nationalists. But in the capital city of Jakarta, the incumbent governor—a Chinese Indonesian—was ousted by an openly racist campaign that many mainstream Muslim leaders failed to denounce.

Turkey

In building the New Silk Road, China is looking for partners, not rivals. But, in the case of Turkey, it has found both. After the fall of the Soviet Union, China and Turkey sparred for influence in Central Asia before Ankara decided to focus on Caspian Sea countries closer to home. During the reign of Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan, Turkey and China have traded accusations over recurrent violence in Xinjiang. In spite of these clashes, Turkey has moved closer to China’s overtures because both countries are eager to counterbalance what they view as mounting hostility from the United States and the European Union. Erdoǧan claims to welcome membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, hoping to dampen Western criticism of his antidemocratic behavior at home. But Chinese leaders are skeptical of allying with Erdoǧan because his domestic support is shrinking precisely when he is trying to grab dictatorial powers.

What Is New about the New Silk Road?

China’s New Silk Road is far different from earlier routes that were similarly named. It promises to link all of Eurasia and Africa in a single hemispheric market with additional connections to the Arctic Sea and Latin America. It builds upon a historic network of Islamic civilization underpinning modern nations that aspire to become regional powers in their own right. China’s deepening involvement in these countries’ conflicts is also reverberating throughout Chinese society. Inside China, blowback from the New Silk Road is aggravating tensions between religious and ethnic groups and widening splits between rival regions.

The Bitter and the Sweet

The New Silk Road is filled with contradictions that diminish its idealistic allure because they undercut the core values its proponents claim to represent, particularly universalism, justice, and knowledge. If leaders around the world—and not merely in China—hope to rescue that allure, they will have to join in fashioning more humane political relations with the same energy they devote to pursuing breakthroughs in technology, commerce, and warfare. Proponents of globalization must confront feelings of exclusion among communities that the New Silk Road bypasses. They need to reduce the inherent inequalities that pervade exchanges between Western and non-Western civilizations. In addition, they have to counter the nationalistic and parochial tendencies that dominate the study of international politics. China and the United States can share a leading role in reforming global governance, but this will require both superpowers to cooperate more closely with a growing number of rising Muslim nations.

Islam and the Opening of the Chinese Mind

Islam’s impact on China is growing because its external and internal influences are more intertwined than ever. Islamic civilization permeates the New Silk Road, shaping all of China’s efforts to integrate megaregions throughout Afro-Eurasia. At the same time, the development of Islam inside China changes the way Chinese people define themselves as a nation and as members of the human family. The deeper China enmeshes itself in the Islamic world, the more Chinese must ask themselves what it means to be Chinese. When Chineseness is understood more inclusively and universally, China gains greater effectiveness in relating to Muslims everywhere, regardless of nationality. For generations, Chinese scholars from many disciplines have drawn upon Sino-Islamic interchanges to reinterpret Chinese identity in more pluralist and cosmopolitan ways. Especially notable are the contributions of Gu Jie Gang in history and ethnography, Fei Xiao Tong in social science, and Tang Jun Yi in neo-Confucian philosophy.

Learning Abroad, Evading at Home

As the New Silk Road exposes China to disruptive influences from many directions, China’s leaders will have to confront the unfinished business of integrating their own society. Divisions inside China are severe and deepening rapidly. They intersect and aggravate one another, producing more and more groups with grievances that cannot be adequately addressed by a single-party state that chokes public debate and outlaws collective action. China has many options for experimenting with inclusive formulas that allow power-sharing without embracing free elections and multiparty pluralism. Since Mao’s death, debates over political reform have started and stalled several times. As those debates resume, China will increasingly see itself as a changed society requiring a more representative government that matches its more prominent position in world affairs. Hong Kong’s semi-democracy is an instructive example of the manipulative strategies that authoritarian rulers might try to emulate on the mainland.