The Contradictions in China’s Developmentalist Foreign Policy

Despite China’s assurances that mutually beneficial economic development can overcome political or security challenges, its developmentalist foreign policy has faced a range of difficulties since the early 2000s. Yet since the introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China has doubled down on its foreign policy developmentalism, reproducing and deepening the propensity to overpromise and underdeliver on its claims for development. Even in the face of the Covid pandemic and growing tensions with the United States, China has remained committed to promoting itself as an agent and engine of economic development on the global stage while also recalibrating the focus of development-focused policies to include health, environmental, and digital aims. As the United States seeks to establish a “new Washington Consensus” with appeal to emerging economies that are already deeply economic interdependent with China, it needs to better account for the momentum and even appeal of China’s flawed but adaptable developmentalist foreign policy.