Strategic Narratives, Ontological Security and Global Policy

Narratives appear more important than ever in International Relations. In the Digital Age, storytelling is increasingly regarded as essential to achieving support for government policy. International Relations is increasingly seen as a narrative contest to ensure that one’s preferred interpretation of reality dominates. Amidst this contest, states vie to convince other states to buy into economic, military, diplomatic and environmental policy initiatives. How they strategically narrate their initiatives affects whether other countries change policy and join them. For all countries involved, the content of strategic narratives is constrained by what policymakers think domestic and international target audiences will accept.

This chapter explains the significance of strategic narratives to global policy initiatives. Introducing the book’s focus—China’s Belt and Road Initiative—it then raises the book’s research questions, including: How do China’s strategic narratives try to persuade other states to join the BRI? How do other states respond to China’s BRI strategic narratives? What roles do material interests and identity concerns play in states’ justifications for joining the BRI? What can we infer from this about the role strategic narratives play in the policy process? Finally, what makes strategic narratives more likely to achieve policy change in international relations?

This chapter establishes a theory of the role strategic narratives play in convincing states to change policy and join other states’ policy initiatives. Our argument is that states are more likely to affiliate with other states’ policy initiatives when they can project a strategic narrative that promises two things. First, that the policy change will bring material gain, and second that it will not undermine the state’s ‘ontological security’. For the state directing a global policy initiative such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the task is to convince potential participants that they will benefit materially from the initiative without undermining the narratives and behaviours through which they maintain their sense of ‘who they are’. In turn, potential participants must be able to project a strategic narrative that convinces their target audiences of the same thing. If a political actor cannot articulate a convincing strategic narrative explaining that joining a policy initiative will bring material benefit without undermining their ontological security, they are less likely to join. The argument is captured in our strategic narrative buy-in framework, which is substantiated in Chapters 4–7 by examining how eight diverse countries respond to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

This chapter outlines China’s BRI strategic narratives up to the Second Belt and Road Forum. It first documents the introduction of the BRI, contextualises the Belt and Road Forums and provides a broad overview of the main BRI strategic narratives and counter-narratives. Highlighting the narrative components of plot, actor and setting, it then shows how in 2019 China sought to tell an updated story about the benefits of the BRI in response to emergent criticism that the project is more exploitative than benevolent. China sought to portray itself to international audiences as a trustworthy and reliable partner, interested above all else in multilateralism, trade and connectivity. It continued to draw on the mythology of the Silk Road to frame the BRI as a benevolent, enriching project to all BRI affiliates. To address criticisms of the BRI, China updated its strategic narrative to focus more on ‘open, green and clean’ cooperation. In addition, China used its BRI strategic narratives to boost its ontological security as a good partner, and as an emerging ‘normative power’ with sufficient influence to shape the norms and standards adopted by the international community.

Kazakhstan and Italy have both joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Their strategic narratives reiterated China’s promises of partnership, increased connectivity and increased trade. Kazakhstan has clear material incentives to embrace the BRI as it borders China and provides the most direct land route to Europe. However, its leaders have also employed BRI rhetoric to boost its ontological security as an important regional actor, as a ‘connector’ in Eurasia between China and Europe and as China’s equal partner. Through this it justifies affiliation in a way that boosts its ontological security in addition to promising material gain. As the first G7 country to join the BRI, Italy’s buy-in surprised some, and the decision has remained controversial. To explain the decision, Italy drew on Silk Road mythology and the country’s historical centrality in the Mediterranean to make joining seem like a routine continuation of past behaviour, rather than a contentious policy shift. Strategically narrating the decision to join as a continuation of past trading exploits was also a way of justifying policy change without undermining its ontological security. This represented a considerable success for China in securing buy-in from a large, Western-orientated liberal democracy.

While most states can identify material benefits from the Belt and Road Initiative, numerous liberal democracies have expressed ontological security concerns about joining it. For example, the UK and the Netherlands have not affiliated, partly because of concerns about China’s failure to adopt international rules and standards and its human rights record. This chapter outlines their concerns. Both characterise themselves as natural trade partners of China because of their history of global trade. However, their strategic narratives reveal concerns that affiliation with the BRI would undermine their ontological security as liberal democracies, and that they might risk subservience to China. The UK in particular tried to lessen its ontological insecurity about the BRI by framing itself as helping China meet international standards. Framing itself as China’s helper could boost its ontological security by implying that China needed the UK more than the other way round. This was insufficient to convince policymakers that they could justify joining the BRI to their electorates and international allies, though. Moreover, since the Second Belt and Road Forum, both countries have raised additional concerns about China’s international behaviour, making formal affiliation more unlikely in future.

This chapter examines the US and India; countries that reject participation in the BRI because of both material interests and ontological security concerns. Both of their economies are more closely intertwined with China than policy rhetoric often suggests. Nevertheless, at the time of the Second Belt and Road Forum, both expressed grave concerns that the BRI was an exploitative project to reshape the international system in China’s favour, and a clear threat to their security. The US exhibits anxiety that the BRI threatens its leading position in the international order, and consequently the initiative undermines its ontological security. India fears subservience to China in South Asia, and considers that the BRI passing through Pakistani-controlled Kashmir undermines its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Without sufficient material incentives or their ontological security concerns being addressed, neither can construct a sayable strategic narrative in favour of affiliation. Increased trade competition between the US and China, and military skirmishes between India and China, exacerbate these issues, making it even more unlikely that either would join the BRI in future.

Some countries have few ontological security concerns about joining the Belt and Road Initiative, but they lack sufficient material incentives. Mexico has material concerns about joining the BRI because it might harm its important economic relationship with the US, and because it competes with China in various manufacturing sectors. Mexico has also experienced failed Chinese infrastructure projects. However, despite anti-China stereotypes prevailing locally, policymakers express few ontological security concerns about affiliation with China. Mexico neither comments on how authoritarian China is, nor challenges its human rights record. Material interests are the main constraint on the Mexican government’s BRI strategic narratives and policy choices. The Maldives embraced the BRI initially, anticipating significant material gains and without notable ontological security concerns about working closely with China. Over time, though, it experienced growing concerns about debt, land grabs and a severe trade imbalance with China. This led to a new government being elected in 2018 on an anti-China platform. It promised to change policy towards the BRI, because the material costs appeared to outweigh the benefits. However, they then moderated their stance in 2019. The case demonstrates the nuanced relationship between policy choices and the strategic narratives used to justify them.

This chapter analyses how China’s strategic narratives evolved in the COVID-19 pandemic’s first year (2020) and how countries responded to it. China’s strategic narrative developed in three stages. The first strategic narrative, ‘China Defends Itself’, was China’s reaction to criticism about its early response to the pandemic. As China began to recover from its initial outbreak, a second strategic narrative became dominant: ‘China Emphasises Solidarity’. China promoted itself as helping other countries manage the pandemic, hoping to reframe itself as the hero of COVID-19 rather than the villain. In late 2020, China began to promote itself even more aggressively through a third strategic narrative: ‘China Asserts its International Leadership’. While the US was struggling to manage COVID-19 and experiencing social unrest during the 2020 Presidential election, China claimed that its leadership had become the world’s best hope for stability, peace and prosperity. Countries’ responses to these strategic narratives varied, although their policy impact on the BRI appears to have been limited. Overall, existing critics of China and the BRI became more critical. However, BRI affiliates largely avoided criticising China, recognising the importance of their ongoing economic relationship with China for their recovery from COVID-19.

Having illustrated this across our cases, this chapter concludes by looking forwards. It considers the future of the Belt and Road Initiative, and whether the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped this significantly. In an age where disinformation and political warfare appear more common, it reiterates that the gap between narrative reality and material reality still matters if states want to persuade others to join their policy initiatives. It considers the future of strategic narrative research and the benefits of analysing strategic narratives and ontological security together. Finally, it reflects on how the book’s theoretical framework might be applied to pressing global policy challenges, such as climate change.