The Belt and Road Initiative and China’s Pursuit of Agenda-Setting Power

The US-led, rules-based order enables China to pursue a peaceful international power transition by leveraging the agenda-setting power. The agenda that China proposes is development, and the lever to promote the agenda is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI helps China publicize the development agenda, co-opt the existing US-led system, showcase China’s material success, legitimize its creation of new international institutions, and attract supporters of its calls to revise the current US-led order. Since Washington wants to avoid its competition with China turning apocalyptic, the most sensible US countermeasure is keeping China inside this rules-based order and competing to set its agenda.