Securitisation and the Belt and Road Initiative: Evolving Narratives in Chinese Discourse

Abstract

The 2010s marked a turning point in global politics, as securitization increasingly reshaped interpretations of the post-Cold War order. While the 1990s and 2000s were defined by optimism about globalization and interdependence, the following decade saw renewed great-power rivalry and declining trust in international norms. In this context, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013 to promote connectivity and shared prosperity, provides a revealing case. Western scholarship has often framed the BRI through a security lens, but little attention has been paid to China’s own evolving discourse. This study analyses Xi Jinping’s speeches at the three Belt and Road Forums (2017, 2019, 2023) to trace discursive shifts. Findings show that security moved from a marginal background condition in 2017 to a principle of governance in 2019, and by 2023 was fully integrated with prosperity in China’s global leadership narrative. Critiques of “debt traps,” corruption, geopolitical expansion, and coercion were rein