Special Issue: New Silk Road Project

Abstract

Coinciding with the rise of Chinese economy, China’s foreign policy has become more assertive than ever. As part of the “Chinese Dream” promise, her new projects, the “New Maritime Silk Road” and the “New Silk Road,” have created a new chapter of China’s relations with her neighboring countries as well as the international communities. However, China’s hidden agenda of the two new projects, her challenges of achieving her goals, and how the international communities respond to the increasingly assertive Chinese foreign policy are yet to be discussed extensively among research on international relations. This introduction seeks to outline a wide spectrum of theoretical framework that is applicable to the subject and to highlight the importance of understanding the context of China’s strategic shifts in Xi Jinping’s era.