China’s Investment Initiative “One Belt, One Road”

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Introduction

As of today, it becomes increasingly clearer to everybody that China’s initiative One Belt, One Road (OBOR) will have a strong effect on the formation of the world’s socioeconomic realities for decades if not centuries to come. The reason for this is quite apparent – if proven functionally resilient and economically sustainable, OBOR will result in transforming the very essence of the geopolitical dynamics on this planet.

After all, there are indeed many reasons to believe that the project’s practical implementation will turn China into the world’s ultimate trade center (Belal, 2015, p. 52). Such an eventual development is predetermined by the sheer scale of the initiative in question. As Godement (2015) noted, “(OBOR) initiative… covers 55 percent of world GNP, 70 percent of global population, and 75 percent of known energy reserves” (p. 1).

At the same time, however, there appears to be a strongly defined ambiguous quality to the OBOR-related discourse. Partially, this can be explained by the fact that, despite having been introduced to the public by Chinese President Xi Jinping as far back as in 2013, there still remain a number of uncertainties about the initiative, in general, and its would-be implementation periods, in particular. Moreover, there is no agreement among political scientists/world politicians as to what account for OBOR’s de facto aims.

According to China’s top officials, the OBOR initiative is there to serve the cause of “boosting mutual learning between civilizations, respecting one another’s development paths, maintaining win-win cooperation and advocating dialogue and peace” (Fang, 2015, p. 5). Nevertheless, many Western-based political analysts tend to remain rather skeptical about the initiative’s officially proclaimed goals while going as far as suggesting that OBOR’s primary objective is essentially utilitarian (concerned with improving the state of domestic socioeconomic affairs) and that by declaring its intention to invest heavily in OBOR, China seeks to attain geopolitical dominance in Asia, Africa, and the South-Pacific region, as something that has the value of a “thing in itself” (without much regard given to the considerations of economic feasibility).

As Fasslabend (2015) argued, “The Chinese Silk road initiative seems to be driven by a combination of internal economic pressure (resulting from the slowdown in economic growth and the existing overcapacity) … and the Chinese dream of world dominance” (p. 301). It is understood, of course, that the continual lack of clarity, with respect to what should be deemed the initiative’s discursive significance, can hardly be considered thoroughly appropriate, especially given the wide range of the initiative’s would-be economic, social, political, and cultural ramifications.

Hence, the rationale for conducting the proposed study, as such that aims to provide the theoretically sound insights into the actual meaning of China’s plan to reestablish the land-based/maritime Silk Road – something that in its turn is expected to fill the existing “knowledge gap” about the concerned project (Blanchard & Flint, 2017, p. 224) and to identify the applicable theory of international relations, through the conceptual lenses of which the qualitative aspects of OBOR should be accessed. Before proceeding to specify the subtleties of the would-be suggested methodological approach to tackling the study’s subject matter, we will need to outline the basic facts about OBOR and elaborate on what can be deemed the initiative’s phenomenological characteristics.

Basic Facts

The world has heard of OBOR for the first time in 2013, when President Xi Jinping announced the Chinese government’s decision to invest in establishing the intercontinental trade route that would connect China with the EU, on one hand, and provide the country with the direct maritime access to Africa/Europe, on the other. However, it would be inappropriate to refer to OBOR in terms of a trade route alone – the initiative’s foremost objective is to achieve a complete infrastructural overhaul of the participant countries’ economies, as the main key to ensuring regional prosperity (Yagci, 2016, p. 31).

Hence, what appears to be the most discursively sound definition of OBOR, “One Belt & One Road is an official initiative proposed by the People’s Republic of China to promote development strategically through different approaches like cooperation, trade, infrastructure, etc.” (Diaz, 2015, p. 20). As of today, there is still much uncertainty as to what is going to account for the exact geographical coordinates of both (land-based and maritime) routes throughout their entirety.

Nevertheless, based on the most recent maps (provided by the Xinhua news agency), it will be reasonable to assume that the Silk Road Economic Belt/SREB (land-based route) will have the city of Xian (in North-Western China) as its starting point. From Xian, the route will then go westwards through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Turkey. After having crossed a few Eastern European countries and Russia, the route will finally reach the city of Rotterdam (Holland) – its final destination.

The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) will start in Quanzhou – one of China’s largest seaports in the country’s Eastern (and most economically developed) part. The plans are for MSR to be extended in the same (westward) direction through the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait until it reaches Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). After that, the route crosses the Indian Ocean leading to Nairobi (Kenya) and takes a northward turn so that it finds its way into the Mediterranean Sea (via the Suez Canal) – hence, connecting Quanzhou to Venice (Italy). (Dittmer, 2016, p. 25).

The major mechanisms of financial support to OBOR include the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – the international financial institution that was founded in 2016 specifically for the purpose of investing in the long-term infrastructural projects in Asia and around the world, and the Silk Road Fund, which was “established in Beijing in 2014, with China contributing US$40 billion, and formally launched its first set of investment projects” (Wenjuan, 2016, p. 431).

Among other financial organizations entrusted with the task of making sure that OBOR will never experience the shortage of funds can be named the China Investment Corporation, Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank Capital Company (Nafey, 2015, p. 337; Liu, 2016, p. 56). Moreover, the Chinese government also intends to subsidize OBOR as an integral part of the country’s 13^th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). It is estimated that the overall cost of making OBOR fully functional may end up being as high as $6 trillion (Aoyama, 2016, p. 14).

Phenomenological Aspects

As it was implied earlier, the Chinese governmental officials tend to regard the OBOR initiative as the instrument of setting participant-countries on the path of the rapid socioeconomic and infrastructural development – all because by deciding to take an active part in OBOR, these countries will supposedly attract some substantial investments from China. This is the reason why, as time goes on, the number of the initiative’s stakeholders continues to increase exponentially.

In its turn, this presupposes that there is no other purpose to OBOR but to serve as the enabling tool of mutual beneficence between China and its regional partners. It is understood, of course, that China’s formal stance on the significance of OBOR is consistent with the provisions of the Constructivist paradigm of international relations, reflective of the idea that, “Social facts take precedent over natural facts, and rationalist assumptions cannot be held without a social grounding” (Hayes, 2017, p. 91).

The validity of this suggestion can be illustrated even further, regarding the officially proclaimed principles of OBOR – openness, inclusiveness, mutual beneficence, and participation. Moreover, the country’s leaders also make a point in discussing OBOR in conjunction with the uniquely Chinese conceptualization of what the notion of “global governance” stands for, commonly known as – hexie shijie (harmonious world). (Nordin, 2016, p. 162).

According to it, it is indeed possible for just about any nation-state to seek the protection of its national interests without turning a blind eye on what account for the national interests of other players in the shared geopolitical niche (He & Feng, 2015, p. 403). Callahan (2012) described the Chinese vision of the “Constructivist paradise”, “This harmonious world will be built… through mutual dialogues, exchanges and cooperation that lead to mutual benefit and common development” (p. 623).

Nevertheless, there are a number of notable peculiarities about OBOR that cause some analysts to suggest that the initiative’s actual significance is best evaluated through the conceptual lenses of the Realpolitik (Realist) theory of international relations, which “unmasks the underlying power dynamics operating behind even seemingly fair and impersonal norms and rules (in the domain of IR)”. (Scheuerman, 2013, p. 801).

According to this theory’s proponents, to be able to secure its place “under the Sun”, just about any country must succeed in: a) pursuing the policy of territorial/economic expansion; b) ensuring the socioeconomic sustainability of its statehood; c) applying a continual effort to undermine the geopolitical power of its natural competitors (neighboring countries). (Ross, 2013, p. 279). Within the context of how this country proceeds with exploring its Realpolitik agenda by investing in a particular long-term economic project, most of the affiliated political and financial risks are deemed negligible.

This, of course, brings in mind OBOR – the developmental initiative that is objectively predetermined to prove a financially risky undertaking for just about every participating stakeholder. As Fang (2015) pointed out, “The Belt and Road initiative involves 64 countries and 900 projects… An investment plan of this size, involving a large number of bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements, runs a high risk of disputes emerging” (p. 10). However, this does not seem to have any effect on the strength of the Chinese government’s commitment to continue endorsing OBOR. Apparently, there is so much more to this initiative than it may appear initially.

There are many other discursive oddities about OBOR as well, potentially suggestive of the initiative’s Realist (as opposed to Constructivist) essence. The most prominent of them are as follows:

• Despite the fact that there have been four years already since Xi Jinping came up with the idea of OBOR, the initiative is still far from attaining the status of a project with the concrete set of developmental objectives, while remaining essentially declarative. According to Aoyama (2016), “Specific policies pertaining to One Belt, One Road are still being developed, and the domestic system and cooperative relations with other nations relating to the implementation of One Belt, One Road are still being created” (p. 13). Moreover, contrary to what were the initial expectations, on the part of many countries-signatories, China does not exhibit much enthusiasm investing money in the infrastructural projects alongside SREB (Bennett, 2016, p. 349).

• There are many political risks to OBOR, posed by the fact that a considerablestretch of the envisioned land-based/maritime trade route will go through the politically volatile countries (Lo, 2015, p. 56). What complicates the matters even further, in this respect, is that some of these countries (such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) are considered “client-states” of Russia – the country that despite its formal willingness to participate in OBOR, does understand perfectly well that if proven workable, the initiative will result in weakening Russia’s geopolitical influence in Central Asia (Gabuev, 2016, p. 61).

• The US is likely to apply an active effort into erecting different obstacles in theway of China trying to materialize its OBOR-related plans. The reason for this is apparent – America perceives OBOR to be utterly irreconcilable with its own interests in the area (Weidong & Dunford, 2016, p. 329; Wang, 2016, p. 461). It is understood, of course, that this will have a strongly negative effect on the sub-sequential stages of the initiative’s practical implementation.

Study’s Aim/Analytical Focus

In light of what has been mentioned earlier, it will be appropriate to confirm that there are indeed a few clearly phenomenological subtleties to the would-be researched subject matter. The logic behind this suggestion has to do with the fact that as it was shown in the Proposal’s previous part, there are two axiomatically incompatible and yet equally legitimate standpoints for discussing the significance of OBOR – the Constructivist and Realist.

The first of them correlates with China’s official stance on OBOR, as well as with the country’s formal commitment to conducting international affairs in an ethically sound manner. The second one presupposes that, despite China’s cultural uniqueness, the geopolitical positioning of this country, in general, and the main objectives of the OBOR initiative, in particular, never ceased being fully observant of the conceptual provisions of the Realpolitik model of IR.

Hence, the foremost aim of the proposed research – to determine which of the outlined IR paradigms provides a methodologically appropriate framework for assessing the sociopolitical implications of the OBOR initiative, and to identify the main motivations for different political analysts/authors to discuss OBOR in conjunction with the casuistic conventions of either Constructivism or Realism (or both).

While conducting the study, we will mainly focus on how the OBOR initiative affects the relationship between China and Russia – the countries that adhere to the principle of geopolitical “multipolarity” (which stands in opposition to the West’s hegemonic aspirations) and play a major role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. There are a few reasons for this.

First, unlike the rest of the world’s nations, China and Russia (along with the US, Britain, and India) enjoy factual independence, which means that both countries can indeed be considered the sovereign agents of international politics. In its turn, this justifies the analysis of OBOR through the lenses of the classical theories of IR (such as Constructivism and Realism) in conjunction with what account for the current state of diplomatic and geostrategic relations between Kremlin and Beijing.

After all, the foremost conceptual premise of these theories is essentially the same with that of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which even today serves as the foundation of international law as we know it while specifying the actual criteria of sovereignty.

Second, one of the new Silk Road’s most important corridors (Chongqing-Duisburg) will extend through Kazakhstan and Russia, with this specific corridor’s stretch being estimated to account for two-thirds of its overall length. Because Kazakhstan is the former Soviet Republic and the member of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), there can be only a few doubts that Russia’s willingness to cooperate with China along the way of establishing OBOR is the crucial precondition for ensuring the initiative’s long-term economic sustainability. Moreover, it is very important for Russia to be able to secure the Chinese financial investments in its economy, especially given the fact that the West proceeds to sanction this country.

Third, the analysis of how OBOR influences Russia and what accounts for this country’s perception of the Chinese initiative will directly contribute to identifying the most suitable IR theory to be referred to, within the context of how political scientists go about lending their views on the initiative’s significance. The rationale behind this suggestion has to do with the fact that, being on friendly (and even unofficially allied) terms with China, Russia was fast to proclaim that it will support OBOR and act as the initiative’s active participant.

In this respect, the Russian government’s rhetoric resembles that of the Chinese top-officials. That is, it has a strong Constructivist sounding to it, with references being made to “peace”, “harmony”, and “progress”, as the project’s primary purpose. At the same time, however, there is a good reason to believe that OBOR is fundamentally inconsistent with Russia’s national interests. For example, according to Pencea (2017), “Russia sees in the OBOR rail networks a competitor and menace for its own Trans-Siberian railroad” (p. 150). The above-mentioned sets a perfect ground for the dichotomy Constructivism vs. Realism to be reassessed once again – this time with respect to the bilateral relations between China and Russia.

The last but not the least consideration for evaluating the OBOR-related effects on Russia is concerned with the ongoing confrontation between this country and the US, which continues to escalate as time goes on, and with the parallel worsening of the Sino-American relations. This geopolitical context presupposes the possibility for the would-be undertaken research to reveal many previously unexplored clues as to what may amount to the initiative’s long-term geopolitical consequences.

Methodological Rationale

The proposed study will rely on conducting the review of the thematically relevant scholarly articles, as the main instrument of collecting the data. The chosen methodological approach takes into consideration both the particulars of the research’s size-wise format and the qualitative essence of the would-be obtained insights into how different authors interpret the significance of the OBOR initiative. Yet another analytical instrument that will be deployed as a part of examining the study’s subject matter, is the OpenCode software, “designed for coding qualitative data generated from text information such as articles, interviews, observations or field notes” (OpenCode, 2017, para. 3).

The rationale behind this suggestion is as follows. Even though, theoretically speaking, both Constructivist and Realist viewpoints on OBOR are considered conceptually credible, this does not mean that they are equally compatible with the observable realities in the arena of international politics (Ringmar, 2016, p. 101).

In its turn, this creates the situation when political analysts/authors cannot help allowing the content of their articles to be affected by the workings of their unconscious psyche, with respect to what the latter perceives as the most adequate theory of international relations – even when the concerned individuals make a conscious point in affiliating themselves with some other theory (Weinberg, 2015, p. 198).

What this means is that there is a hypothetical possibility for the formally Constructivist conceptualization of OBOR to convey (between the lines) the message of Realpolitik and vice versa. The above-stated presupposes the presence of the unconsciously reproduced and commonly overlooked “clusters of meaning” in just about any scholarly article on OBOR – the OpenCode program enables a researcher to detect, codify, and quantify such “clusters”, and to interpret the discursive connotations of the obtained data. The deployment of this particular software, as a part of proceeding with the suggested research-inquiry, will also help to identify what might have motivated the authors of the would-be reviewed articles to assume one or another argumentative stance, with respect to the OBOR initiative.

Study’s Phases

The main sub-sequential phases of conducting this study will be as follows:

1. Collecting the data. In our case, this data will be collected by reviewing the academic publications, concerned with the OBOR initiative. The primary objective of the would-be undertaken literature review is to attain a better understanding of what prompted the Chinese government to decide in favor of reestablishing the Silk Road. Only the most relevant/up-to-date articles and studies will be chosen for the review.
2. Identifying the spatially stable patterns (“clusters of meaning”) within the argumentative frameworks, deployed by different authors. While through this particular phase of the study, the researcher will strive to pinpoint the recurrent themes and motifs in how the authors elaborate on the specifics of China’s conceptualization of OBOR. The main objective here would be determining whether the manner, in which these authors discuss the initiative’s theoretical/practical implications, is consistent with the affiliated articles’ overall ideological sounding (Manoliu, 2015, p. 51).
3. Codifying the identified “clusters of meaning”. After having defined the most prominent semiotic patterns in the reviewed articles/studies, the researcher will assign the former with the specific connotational codes – something that will ease up the process of synthesizing the findings. This will be done with the help of the OpenCode software. The main focus of this phase of the project is to highlight the detected “clusters of meaning”, to obtain analytical clues into the nature of the relationship between them, and to ascertain the emerging independent and dependent variables. While addressing this task, the researcher will remain observant of the provisions of the axial coding paradigm, which takes into account the continually transforming essence of the researched phenomenon (Theron, 2015, p. 4).
4. Interpreting the codified data. Throughout the final phase of the study, the researcher will expound on what should be deemed the significance of the revealed relational patterns between the codified “clusters of meaning”. While conducting this part of the study, the researcher will strive to find evidence that would either support or refute the validity of the following hypothetical presuppositions:

• The OBOR initiative is best assessed within the axiomatic framework of the Realist theory of international relations.
• China’s foremost advantage, within the context of how it proceeds promoting OBOR, has to do with the fact that, despite having been liberalized throughout the last few decades, the country’s economy remains essentially Socialist – something that enables the government to indulge into the long-term economic planning (Weiguang, 2014, p. 5).
• The initiative’s official aims (as articulated by the Chinese government) aredeclarative, and as such they cannot be considered representative of the Chinese government’s true agenda in continuing to promote OBOR.

Limitations

One of the main limitations, associated with the deployment of the suggested methodological approach to conducting the proposed study is that while collecting and analyzing the data, a researcher will be tempted to come up with the value-based judgments, regarding the discussed subject matter (Hussein, Hirst, Salyers, & Osuji, 2014, p. 6). Consequently, this will undermine the validity of the study’s findings.

Another anticipated limitation has to do with the fact that the suggested research-approach is prone to methodological errors/inconsistencies. This simply could not be otherwise, as there are no universally recognized criteria for defining the quality-impairing procedural deviations within the context of how a researcher proceeds to apply an analytical inquiry (Trafimow, 2014, p. 20).

Finally, it can also be mentioned that the actual process of collecting and analyzing the data is most likely to prove excessively elaborate – all due to the time-consuming technical aspects of the codification process.

Strengths

The study’s limitations are predetermined by the chosen methodological format for conducting it. However, the same format presupposes that there will be a few notable strengths to the proposed research as well. Among them, can be named:

• Insightfulness. In the aftermath of having completed the study’s empirical phases, the researcher should acquire a holistic (multidimensional) understanding of what the OBOR initiative is all about, consistent with the provisions of the currently dominant discourse in the IR domain.
• Practical applicability. The would-be obtained findings should prove a practical asset for political scientists and politicians alike. The reason for this is that the study is expected to reveal the overall vector of political developments in today’s world.
• Systemic integrity. The proposed methodological approach to collecting and analyzing the data is consistent with the systemic (referring to the Systems Theory) conceptualization of fluctuating dynamics in the field of IR. In its turn, this will contribute even further towards ensuring the scientific soundness of the study’s conclusions.

Hypothesis

General Considerations

The main conceptual premise behind just about any study is that there must be a strong practical value to the data, obtained during conducting research. More specifically – the study’s findings are expected to provide researchers with the in-depth understanding of the studied issue’s significance and also allow them to come up with the logically sound predictions as to what will account for the social, political and economic effects of the examined subject matter in the future.

In this respect, the second consideration appears to be just as important as the first one – something that explains why even the studies concerned with examining the current state of a researched phenomenon invariably aim to define its spatial characteristics.

After all, it has always represented a commonplace practice among researchers to strive to recognize and classify distributional patterns within the bulk of the empirically collected data, which in turn is supposed to ensure the logical integrity of their line of argumentation as to what should be deemed the investigated issue’s discursive implications. The reason for this is apparent – the basic principle of casuistic logic presupposes that one’s ability to identify such patterns is the key to understanding what will be the yet-to-be-actualized workings of the future.

While addressing the task, most researchers prefer to analyze the research-relevant matters within the methodological format of a “cross-sectional” or “longitudinal” investigative inquiry. Such their choice is thoroughly justified – being in the position to derive analytical insights from the easily obtainable statistical data of relevance, they can claim that there is indeed much scientific credibility to their take on the studied phenomenon’s significance.

There are, however, a few shortcomings to the longitudinal and cross-sectional research formats. The main of them has to do with the fact that the mentioned methodological approach cannot be used for examining the chosen issues in the “as-it-happens” format. After all, the very availability of statistical information, regarding a particular issue, implies that the latter has been a part of the public discourse for some time. In its turn, this somewhat undermines the objectiveness of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, as it is only natural for the affiliated authors to aspire (even if unconsciously) to have the would-be obtained findings fully consistent with the currently dominant political ideology.

Because of the above-stated, it would be logical to suggest that the measure of the chosen methodology’s appropriateness should be assessed with respect to its practitioners’ ability to ensure that there is a utilitarian value to the would-be undertaken research, regardless of whether their methodological approach can be considered conventional enough or not. Consequently, this opens new possibilities for researchers within the context of how they may go about analyzing an issue of geopolitical significance, especially if the latter fits the definition “project-in-making” (such as OBOR).

In particular, it provides one with much rationale to choose in favor of the specifically Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach, concerned with identifying the “the interrelation of language and social reality and how the one influences the other” (Schrieier 2012, p. 48). The rationale for choosing this specific research-tool has to do with the fact that, as practice shows, just about any analytical article (concerned with exploring a particular IR-related issue) contains a number of the implicitly defined themes and motifs of discursive importance – even in cases when the affiliated authors do not possess much conscious awareness of it.

The reason for this is that while discussing such an issue, the authors never cease to be affected by the fully objective political and economic forces that contribute to the continual transformation of the global IR-discourse. Because it takes time for the currently prevailing (on a global scale) ideologies to undergo the required conceptual adjustments so that they retain their legitimacy, there is a certain rationale to assume that the recently published articles on the subject of IR contain many “between the lines” clues as to what is going to define the essence of international politics in the future – despite the fact that the anticipated changes have not yet taken place.

This particular consideration will account for the central hypothetical premise of our study. While conducting it, we expect to find evidence in support of the idea that it is possible to deliberate over the significance of one or another regionally scaled socioeconomic development in conjunction with what happened to be the global discursive climate at a time. If proven viable, this idea will testify in favor of the positivist outlook on the nature of the continually fluctuating dynamics in the world of international politics.

Among the main approaches to ensuring the methodological soundness of the would-be undertaken inquiry, has been commonly considered the establishment of the proper analysis-framework. The reason for this is that, within the context of conducting CDA, it represents a matter of crucial importance to make sure that the abstract terms, notions, and concepts, to which we will refer in the study’s sub-sequential phases, convey the same semiotics throughout the research’s entirety.

Therefore, it will be thoroughly logical to go about constructing the study’s discursive framework by identifying the most notable aspects of how OBOR is viewed by the Chinese governmental officials, on one hand, and the formally independent political analysts, on the other.

Another justification for the chosen approach has to do with one of the key principles of tackling a phenomenological issue – a researcher must get as close to the phenomenon’s origins, as possible. In this regard, it should prove particularly enlightening being able to identify the implicit connotations of the officially provided explanations, concerning the purpose of the socioeconomic initiative in question.

OBOR-Related Considerations

One of the most notable qualities of a contemporary public discourse in the West is that it continues to be affected by the conventions of the Constructivist theory of IR, which until recently used to enjoy much popularity among political analysts and politicians while being considered thoroughly legitimate. This theory’s main conceptual premise is reflective of the assumption that humanity’s continual sociocultural advancement will eventually result in outdating the very notion of “nation-state” and that the fluctuating dynamics in the IR domain are economically and socially rather than geopolitically predetermined.

Nevertheless, there is a good reason to believe that political Constructivism can no longer be deemed credible – the rapid worsening of the political situation in the world, triggered by the ongoing confrontation between the US and Russia, as well as the growing power of China (which is de facto allied with Russia), illustrates the validity of this suggestion. After all, the concerned development does not only validate the traditional (Westphalian) outlook on what the concept of statehood stands for, but it also presupposes the secondary role of economic rationale in defining the relationship between international actors.

China’s recent One Road, One Belt (OBOR) initiative, which calls for the integration of Eurasian markets, the establishment of the efficiently functioning trade routes between China and Europe/Africa, and the abandonment of the protectionist trade tariffs, provides us with yet additional opportunity to test the legitimacy of this suggestion. This, however, is easier said than done due to a variety of different reasons. Among the most obvious of them can be named the initiative’s comparative recentness, the fact that the Chinese government’s official conceptualization of OBOR is extremely vague, and the scarcity of academic articles that assess OBOR through the lenses of the currently “unfashionable” Realist theory of IR.

Nevertheless, we believe that there is nothing impossible about such a would-be undertaking. The logic behind this suggestion can be formulated as follows. Even though political Constructivism continues to be held in high regard throughout the world (due to its presumed progressiveness), there is a good reason to think that as time goes on, more and more political scientists begin to suspect this theory of being rather unworkable – even if not realizing it consciously.

In its turn, this presupposes that even the scholarly articles that assess OBOR from the Constructivist perspective should contain implicit (or explicit) references to the concerned initiative as such that is being geopolitically motivated. By identifying such references and comparing them (qualitatively and quantitatively) to those that treat OBOR as being solely concerned with strengthening the integrity of economic/financial transactions in Eurasia (and the world), we should be able to gain many interesting insights into the subject matter in question.

Hence, the proposed methodological approach to conducting the study’s empirical phase – the identification and codification of the semantically connotative “clusters of meaning” within the would-be reviewed articles and the sub-sequential subjection of the codified data for the discursive analysis. During the process, we expect to be able to find evidence in support of the study’s main hypothesis – the OBOR initiative is China’s response to the ongoing transformation of geopolitical realities on this planet (concerned with the decline of the West), which presupposes the auxiliary role of the initiative’s economic motivations.

Expected Results

As it was mentioned earlier, the suggested methodological design for conducting this research presupposes the equal legitimacy of the Constructivist and Realist IR-models, in the theoretical sense of this word. After all, both outlooks on the essence of IR are indeed thoroughly logical and backed with much empirical evidence as to their practical applicability. The point, however, is to define the extent of each of these models’ practical applicability, with respect to the Chinese initiative.

This particular objective will be addressed in the “Discussion” part of our study. Nevertheless, prior to discussing the subject matter in question, we will need to gather enough information, regarding the initiative’s global and regional implications, as well as to identify, codify and quantify the “clusters of meaning” in the selected articles.

The process’s initial phase will be concerned with conducting the literature review of the OBOR-related scholarly materials that have been published through the years 2014-2017. While tackling the task, we expect to attain a holistic understanding of the issue – something reflective of our yet another expectation that the chosen articles are indeed insightful, with regard to the Chinese initiative’s commonly overlooked aspects. We will also strive to determine whether the Chinese government’s official position on OBOR is casuistically sound and define similarities/differences between the Realist and Constructivist takes on Sino-Russian entente.

While through the empirical phase of the study, we will seek to identify the Constructivist and Realist “clusters of meaning” within the context of how the authors go about expounding on the overall (global) significance of OBOR. It is expected that the would-be collected data will substantiate the validity of the initially proposed thesis about the growing out-datedness of the Constructivist doctrine in IR.

More specifically, we anticipate that the number of the Realist connotative references, found in the textual bulk of the first set of articles, will be comparable to that of the Constructivist ones. At the same time, however, we presume that the Constructivist themes/motifs will be found to exert the strongest influence on the line of argumentative reasoning, chosen by the authors.

The rationale behind this suggestion has to do with the fact that, up until the year 2017 (which marked the formation of the de facto alliance between China and Russia), China’s international positioning adhered (at least formally) to the principle of neutrality, which in turn used to be seen in the West as yet additional indication of this country’s willingness to conform to the Western-centric paradigm of “global governance”, known for the essentially Constructivist sounding of many of its conceptual provisions.

Nevertheless, we expect that the analysis of the semiotic clusters in the textual bulk of the second batch of articles (concerned with discussing the Sino-Russian relationship) will expose us to somewhat different distributive pattern. That is, the number of the Realism-conveying references in these articles should prove much higher than that of the ones that convey the message of Constructivism. The logic behind this particular anticipation, on our part, is rather commonsensical.

The continual cooperation between China and Russia is believed (in the West) to undermine the very fundaments of Pax Americana, which is likely to prompt Western-based authors to accentuate some of this cooperation’s specifics in the necessarily negative discursive light – hence, naturally causing these authors to assess Sino-Russian entente from the Realist perspective. The reason for this is that in the West (especially in the EU) the concept of Realpolitik continues to be deemed morally inappropriate.

In the aftermath of having conducted the study, we should also be able to come up with the elaborative answers to the following set of questions:

1. What was the main motivation for the Chinese government to come up withthe idea of OBOR?
2. In what way will the concerned socioeconomic initiative help China tostrengthen its “soft power”?
3. What will account for the initiative’s effects on the relationship between Russiaand China?
4. The application of which specific theory of IR should prove the most appropriatewithin the context of how political analysts elaborate on the significance of OBOR?
5. What will be the initiative’s implications for the formation of geopolitical realitieson this planet in the future?

Discursive Framework

As it was mentioned earlier, there is still much uncertainty about what should be deemed the actual purpose and aims of the Chinese OBOR initiative. Partially, such a state of affairs reflects the fact that there is no agreement among political analysts as to what should be deemed the axiomatically legitimate theory of IR, within the conceptual framework of which the initiative’s implications are to be assessed.

The described situation, of course, adds much complexity to the task. The reason for this is that the latter presupposes that after having examined the issue in conjunction with a particular theory’s provisions, a researcher should be in the position to identify the full scope of the issue’s spatial subtleties (its independent and dependent variables in-making). What this means is that the concerned task is thoroughly objective, and yet the very abundance of different (and often mutually inconsistent) IR theories suggests that the theory-grounded discussion of OBOR is bound to result in yielding utterly subjective (biased) insights into what the concerned initiative is all about.

The above-stated, however, does not imply that it will prove impossible to come up with the conceptually sound theory for elaborating on the significance of OBOR by definition. There are two considerations that substantiate the validity of this suggestion. First, contrary to how some political scientists view it, the availability of different IR theories does not mean that they are equally legitimate. Second, despite the mentioned abundance of these theories, it is still possible to describe just about all of them as “positivist”, on one hand, and “post-positivist”, on the other.

The main discursive feature of the positivist ones is that they derive from of the idea that being a part of the surrounding natural environment, social/political phenomena are the legitimate subjects of the dialectical (cause-effect) research inquiry and that the dynamics in the IR domain are irrespective of people’s subjective opinions of them. As Heidtman, Wysienska and Szmatka (2000) pointed out, “(Positivist) theories… accept methodological standards of the ‘hard sciences’.

They are abstract, general, universal, and empirically testable” (p. 1). Among the most influential positivist IR theories can be named Realism, Neorealism, and Liberalism. The “post-positivist” approach to theorizing the essence of socioeconomic and political developments in the world, on the other hand, is concerned with the assumption that there is very little in common between the social and natural realms, which supposes that the functional principles of the latter hardly apply to the former and vice versa.

According to the earlier quoted authors, the theoretical essence of the post-positive IR paradigm is reflective of the idea that, “The creation of the social world is accomplished through the process of interaction, interpretation, evaluation, and definition. Because social organization changes as a result of human activities, timeless laws defining its properties are impossible” (Heidtman, Wysienska & Szmatka, 2000, p. 3). The most prominent among the post-positivist IR theories have traditionally been considered Constructivism, Functionalism, and Post-Modernism.

It must be noted that, whereas Neorealism and Liberalism are in essence the conceptual “subdivisions” of Realism, Functionalism, and Post-Modernism can also be discussed as being merely the discursive offshoots of the same Constructivist IR model. Consequently, this suggests that it will be appropriate to tackle the topic in conjunction with the postulates of specifically Realism and Constructivism, as the well-established and yet mutually contesting “umbrella-theories” that offer some uniquely distinctive (and largely incompatible) insights into what should be considered the actual driving force behind the observed fluctuations in the realm of international politics.

The appropriateness of the chosen approach can be illustrated even further regarding the fact that it is namely Realism and Constructivism that more than any other theories have contributed towards constructing the public discourse of post-modernity (or post-industrialism), which exerts a powerful influence on how political scientists go about rationalizing the significance of the current geopolitical developments in the world. In the following sub-chapters, we will outline the subtleties of both theories in question.

Constructivist Theory of IR

The legitimation of Constructivism in IR dates back to the early 1990s – the historical period marked by the collapse of the USSR and the readjustment of America’s geopolitical status as the world’s only superpower. The American sociologist Alexander Wendt is commonly credited with having conceptualized the theory’s main conventions. In his works, Wendt used to promote the idea that there is nothing innately predetermined (objective) to the way in which nation-states interact with each other in the arena if international politics.

He is also known for his claims that it is no longer appropriate to think that by virtue of being a citizen of a particular country, one is automatically endowed with the spatially stable sense of “collective identity” – the assumption that has traditionally been evoked to prove the objectiveness of the concept of “statehood”. As Hynek and Teti (2010) argued, “His (Wendt’s) systemic approach (to IR) represented ‘a kind of structural idealism’, and has become, criticism notwithstanding, a benchmark for IR Constructivism” (p. 176).

The theory’s most fundamental tenet accentuates the importance of taking into account the systemic effects of humanity’s continual sociocultural progress on the enactment of foreign policies by states – something that presupposes that the very essence of how different countries interact internationally is going to attain an entirely new quality. Another prominent feature of how the Constructivist theory’s affiliates conceptualize IR is that according to them, the observable dynamics in the field of international politics must be assessed in conjunction with what happened to be the affecting “social facts” (Durkheim’s term) at a time.

When referring to the latter, Constructivists have in mind the post-industrial specifics of how people from different countries go about constructing their sense of self-identity – the process that is assumed to result in helping the concerned individuals to broaden their intellectual horizons, which in turn endows the political dynamics on this planet with a new quality and supposedly delegitimizes the “cyclic” (Realist) view of historical progress.

Hence, the Constructivists’ tendency to pay much attention to the factors and culture and identity (both personal and collective) within the context of how a particular country forms its foreign policies. As Cho (2012) pointed out, “By stressing the ideational aspects of international politics, such as the intersubjective ideas and discourses, Constructivism takes the concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ seriously, both of which have largely been ignored in the mainstream Realist approach” (p. 300). Supposedly, this makes the discussed IR-theory consistent with the very spirit of post-industrial modernity.

Constructivists also deny the existence of the direct casuistic relationship between the quality of IR dynamics at a given time and the external factors of influence (such as the depletion of natural resources, for example). The theory’s positioning, in this respect, is best explained regarding yet another major Constructivist assumption, “Social facts take precedent over natural facts, and rationalist assumptions cannot be held without a social grounding” (Hayes, 2017, p. 91).

There is a seemingly good logic behind this particular idea – because the society’s growing complexity affects the perceptual and cognitive predispositions of its members, this will have a strong effect on the concerned individuals’ sense of national identity and consequently on the actual quality of how this society goes about taking full advantage of being endowed with the nationhood of its own. Hence, the theory’s objective, “Constructivism aims to prove that ideational factors… have causal or semi-causal effects on state behavior. Constructivism challenges the assumption that the formation of states’ interests, is prior and exogenous to social interaction” (Arkan, 2014, p. 25). The Constructivist model’s foremost theoretical ramifications are as follows:

• People’s ability to indulge in different cognitive activities defines the surroundingsocial/political reality and not vice versa. This idea serves as the main axiomatic premise of Constructivism. Bobulescu (2011) was able to formulate it with perfect clarity, “Just as social structure cannot be understood independently of considerations of human powers, the natural order (in IR)… must be recognized as a conditionfor social action and thus as an object of social study” (p. 41). There are a few discursive implications to this particular suggestion. First, as time goes on, the very quintessence of international relations will continue to attain more and more of the previously unheard-of qualities – the idea that stands opposite to the Realist assumption that these relations have always been anarchic and that this will continue to remain the case into the future. Second, it usually takes time for the functioning of governmental/social institutions in just about every country to catch up with the current conventions of the global IR-related discourse, reflective of the people’s ever-increased awareness of what may account for the discursively sound approach to tackling the challenges of a post-industrial living. Third, there is the objective reason for the cultural/sociopolitical customs in different parts of the world to grow ever more compatible with each other – the ongoing process of Globalization stands out exemplary, in this respect.
• There is no good rationale to believe that a country’s diplomatic stance should bedeemed merely instrumental, in the sense of how the government aspires to protect “national interests”. The logic behind this suggestion has to do with the deep-seated dichotomy between Constructivism and the positivist outlook on the driving forces behind historical progress. According to the theory’s promoters, it is utterly inappropriate to assume (as Realists do) that different aspects of the human society’s functioning are ultimately defined by the Darwinian laws of evolution. In its turn, this establishes a certain possibility for different countries to choose in favor of cooperation (as opposed to rivalry) with each other, as a direct pathway towards realizing their full geopolitical potential. In the future, this should result in diminishing (or eliminating altogether) the objective preconditions for the outbreaks of major wars on this planet to continue taking place.
• A nation-state can no longer be considered the only legitimate actor in the field ofIR. To validate such their point of view, Constructivists often refer to the fact that, as of today, many Western-based transnational corporations have succeeded in becoming nothing short of the quasi-sovereign entities of their own, which in turn resulted in the legitimation of a number of the recently emerged socioeconomic concepts, such as Corporate Social Responsibility. The adherents of the Constructivist conceptualization of IR also refer to the steadily increasing number of the so-called Non-Governmental Organizations/NCOs (as well as to their growing importance as the agents of “global governance”) as yet additional proof, in this respect.
• Because the recent breakthroughs in the field of IT have resulted in increasingthe volume of informational transactions that take place between citizens of different countries, this will inevitably cause the code of “post-industrial” ethics to be incorporated as an integral part of different IR-related practices and conventions. In its turn, such an eventual development will contribute rather heavily towards making this world a better place, in the sense of reducing the number of incentives for nation-states to consider resorting to war, as the ultimate instrument of solving disputes between each other. At the same time, however, the advocates of the Constructivist IR-paradigm often exhibit much scepticism about the presumed ability of many long-established international organizations (such as the UN) to contribute in any real way towards the actualization of this particular scenario – all due to the transitional nature of these organization’s operative philosophy. After all, it is concerned with the essentially Realist assumption that for IR-agents to be willing to cooperate, they must be provided with concrete (realist) incentives to act in such a manner. And, as perceived from the egoistic perspective of every individual country, there is very little utilitarian value to the initiatives that international organizations currently promote, such as “combating global poverty”, “protecting human rights” or “addressing global warming”.

Nevertheless, even though during the last few decades the Constructivist paradigm of IR has become very popular in the West, there is a number of conceptual deficiencies to it. The most notable of them has to do with the lack of axiomatic integrity to many Constructivist conventions, which causes the latter to be defined much too vaguely to represent any practical value.

This simply could not be otherwise, because as Erskine (2012) noted, “Constructivism empirically documents change in moral norms and presumes some change to be ethically desirable, but does not examine the basis on which such presumptions can be made” (p. 455). It is understood, of course, that this causes some political experts to experience much doubt about whether the Constructivist IR-model can be considered a workable instrument of predicting ahead of time what will define the essence of international politics in the future – despite the normative sounding of most Constructivist provisions, the theory’s epistemological apparatus is ill-suited for testing their legitimacy in the field.

Another apparent weakness of Constructivism is that there is a strong political bias to many of its basic provisions – something best explained by the fact that the concerned IR-theory has been traditionally associated with the ideology of Neoliberalism, which even today continues to enjoy a quasi-official status in most Western countries. Consequently, this prompts more and more people in the peripheral parts of the world to render Constructivist notions (especially the universalist sounding ones) subservient to the Realpolitik agenda of the West.

In this regard, Wang and Blyth (2013) came up with an interesting observation, “The notion of a ‘collective interest’ of something neutral called ‘the international community’ is suspected of being little more than a euphemism for the American-centric Western world” (p. 1278). Evidently enough, this cannot result in anything else but undermining even further the validity of the Constructivist outlook on IR. It has to be noted, however, that the above-mentioned does not seem to have much of an effect on the sheer strength of many Western politicians’ commitment to discussing international politics from the necessarily Constructivist perspective.

Finally, Constructivism does not take into consideration the evolutionary predetermined specifics of how most people engage (cognitively) with the surrounding social reality – something that never ceases to exert strong Realpolitik influence on the fluctuating dynamics in the domain of IR while exposing the erroneousness of the Constructivism’s fixation on “social facts” as such that affect the course of history more than anything does.

Realist Theory of IR

As compared to the Constructivist theory of IR, the Realist one has been around for much longer. It is commonly assumed that the origins of political Realism date back to the publishing of Niccolò Machiavelli’s book The Prince in the late 15^th century. Among the famous European intellectuals who have contributed towards this theory’s conceptual refinement in one way or another through the 17^th-19^th centuries can be named Thomas Hobbes, David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche. However, it was not up until the 20^th century that the Realist theory’s discursive advancement has reached its peak – the development closely associated with the names of E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, Max Weber and Kenneth Waltz.

Generally speaking, IR Realism is best defined as the theory that, “(A) affirms the autonomy of politics; (b) takes disagreement, conflict, and power to be ineradicable and constitutive features of politics; (c) rejects as ‘utopian’ or ‘moralist’ those approaches, practices, and evaluations which seem to deny these facts; and (d) prioritizes political stability over justice” (McQueen, 2017, p. 297).

Unlike Constructivists, Realists believe that there is nothing truly transformative about the system of international relations – even if this does appear to be the case upon an initial assessment. One of the reasons for this is that according to the Realist theory, the purpose of just about every country’s existence cannot be discussed outside of what accounts for the existential agenda of its citizens, which has always been and will continue to be strongly “biological” – securing access to nutrients, reproducing genome, and aspiring for domination.

Consequently, this presupposes the sheer irrelevancy of the ethics-related considerations, within the context of how people go about trying to achieve self-actualization. The logic behind this suggestion has to do with the energetic ineffectiveness (concerning bodily metabolism) of the ethically sound approaches to addressing life-challenges – something that explains the unconscious appeal of a theft (“easy money”) to most people, regardless of whether they consider themselves moral/religious or not. After all, one’s success in committing theft and getting away with it implies that the concerned individual was able to save up a considerable amount of metabolic energy that he or she would otherwise be required to spend on acquiring the same resource in an honest/socially appropriate manner.

Consequently, this will contribute toward increasing the extent of his or her existential competitiveness – the preserved energy is likely to prove an important asset within the context of the person goes about taking care of its primary biological objectives, concerned with baby-making and dominance-imposing. It is thoroughly appropriate to apply the same kind of “biological” logic when it comes to discussing the discursive significance or IR, in general, and its varying societal extrapolations, in particular.

The reason for this is that nation-states are “made” of people – hence, a well-observed spontaneous/irrational quality to the interrelationship between different countries, reminiscent of the specifics of the interpersonal relationship between different people.

Because of the increasing scarcity of natural resources/arable land on this planet, the dynamics in the domain of IR are predetermined to remain reflective of the ongoing fierce competition between international agents for the “room under the Sun”. In this regard, Guzzini (2004) came up with the valuable observation, “Realism’s theory of action is based on a self-interest which is defined in a predominantly materialist way… The materialist theory of action entails that international relations are necessarily a realm of power politics” (p. 536).

What this means is that, regardless of what happen to be the form of political governing in a particular country or the specifics of this country’s socioeconomic development, its national agenda never ceases to be concerned with reaching the following three objectives: territorial/”soft power” expansion, preservation of its statehood’s integrity, and the application of a continual effort to weaken competing nations.

The ongoing confrontation between Russia and the US exemplifies the validity of the Realist take on IR. After all, there seems to be very little reason for both countries to contemplate declaring war on each other, especially given the essential sameness of the American and Russian socioeconomic models (Capitalism), the fact that the overwhelming majority of Russian and American citizens considers war-mongering politicians (on both sides) insane, and the fact that the election of Donald Trump as the US President would not have taken place, had he not promised his voters to restore good relations with Russia.

Nevertheless, it is most likely that as time passes by, this confrontation will continue to intensify – the hypothetical development that may well result in triggering the outbreak of the WW3. However, if assessed with the Realist IR-theory in mind, the conflictual situation in question will appear having been dialectically predetermined. Even though the geographical remoteness of the US and Russia from each other presupposes that there can be no territorial disputes between the two, there is a good Realist rationale to expect the continual deterioration of the Russo-American relationship through the years to come.

The reason for this is that, having grown accustomed to acting as a “big bully” in the international arena while expecting nothing but absolute obedience from its client-states around the world (the key to America’s economic prosperity), it is perfectly logical the US to feel threatened by the rapid economic and military strengthening of what it considers to be (as of this point) its main geopolitical rivalry.

After all, if the situation is to be left unaddressed, it will only be a matter of time before America’s formally independent vassals in every part of the world begin to wonder whether the US is as powerful as it wants everybody to believe and whether the time has already come for them to consider switching sides before it is too late – the development that will cause the collapse of Pax Americana as we know it. And, just as it is often the case with many simple-minded bullies out on the street, the US government could not think of any better way to deal with the challenge, but trying to intimidate Russia militarily.

The mentioned parallel correlates well with the Realist stipulation that, for as long as the “game of geopolitics” is concerned, the adoption of the most straightforward/energy-efficient strategy for confronting rivalries by a particular country is likely to prove the most improvident one.

In light of what has been said earlier, regarding the contemporary aspects of the Russo-American relationship, it will be appropriate to confirm that: a) Realism continues to represent much practical value as a discursively sound theory of IR, b) There is a strong Darwinian quality to the current dynamics in the IR-domain – the observation that stands out in contrast to the Constructivist claim about the presumably “ideational” nature of these dynamics. The outlined logic of the casuistic reasoning, with respect to the relationship in question, also helps to explain the rationale behind the Realist theory’s other conceptual premises, with the most noteworthy of them being:

• Assumption that the qualitative fluctuations in the realm of IR arequintessentially anarchic and that this will continue to be the case into the future. The logic behind this idea has to do with the theory’s insistence that there is the factual absence of any universally recognized criteria for identifying a country’s international conduct as being appropriate or not. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the international law’s provisions are non-enforceable supports this Realist claim better than anything else. The claim’s legitimacy can also be confirmed, regarding the fact that even though the term “international law” continues to be featured rather prominently in the public speeches of many Western politicians, the concerned practice has long ago ceased making any other but strictly rhetorical sense. This could not be otherwise – the recent outbreaks of the US-curated “democratic revolutions” throughout the world (such as the ones that had taken place in Libya, Syria and Ukraine) and the sub-sequential engulfment of the affected countries by a civil war imply that, as of today, the term “international law” can be seen synonymous with the idiom “law of the jungle”.
• Cyclical outlook on history. According to Realists, it is always possible tofind some discursively similar analogues to the currently unfolding political developments back in the history. The reason for this is simple. Just as it used to be the case hundreds and even thousands of years ago, there are two types of actors in the IR arena – those who strive to preserve their dominance in a geographically localized niche, and those who actively challenge the current status quo, in this respect, while aspiring to win the dominant status for themselves. The ongoing confrontation between Russia and the US will again come in handy within the context of how one may go about arguing that this particular Realist idea is indeed thoroughly valid. After all, there are a number of good reasons to believe that it is closely replicative of the confrontation between Carthage and Roman Republic that has taken place through the 3^rd-2^nd centuries BC (in the form of the famous Punic Wars) and resulted in the complete destruction of Carthage by the Romans. Probably the most obvious of these reasons has to do with the fact, just as it was the case with the clash between Cartage and Rome many centuries ago, the contemporary escalation of geopolitical tensions between the US and Russia is best conceptualized in terms of “money” vs. “spirit”. In this regard, it will be logical to think of the US as the modern equivalent of ancient Carthage (financial oligarchy) and of Russia as such that discursively “replicates” ancient Rome (enlightened authoritarianism).
• Refusal to recognize that ethical considerations play any role within thecontext of how nation-states address competitive challenges. After all, when assessed through the lenses of Realism, it will appear that there are only two virtues worthy of being pursued by just about any country – survival and dominance. Both of them, however, are absolutely irrespective of the notion of ethics. As McQueen (2017) suggested, “Politics is an amoral realm… in which universal moral rules must be overridden and ‘good’ political actors must dirty their hands” (p. 297). In fact, as history shows, the adoption of the ethically sound approach to conducting foreign affairs by a country usually results in depriving it of a number of different competitive advantages. According to Realists, this is the best proof of the concerned practice’s counter-productiveness.

Despite the fact that the Realist theory of IR correlates perfectly well with the recent sociologically relevant discoveries in the fields of biology, psychology, neurology and cybernetics, it continues to be widely criticized. Probably the most widely applied criticism of political Realism has to do with the idea that the theory’s conceptualization of IR is inconsistent with the systemic outlook on the essence of international dynamics.

After all, it has been well established that the process of a particular system (such as the domain of IR) becoming progressively more complex, results in the emergence of the previously unseen patterns to this system’s functioning. These patterns, however, do not directly derive from what used to be the same system’s operative principles, before it has reached a new level of complexity. One of the main reasons for this is that, as a system grows ever more complex, its overall quality becomes increasingly affected by what happened to be the quality of the interactive relationship between its integral elements, and less influenced by the actual quality of each of them.

What this means is that, even if we are to assume that each individual nation-state is indeed driven by the considerations of self-interest, this does not mean that there necessarily must be an “anarchic” quality to the interrelationship between different countries.

It also represents a common practice among political scientists to criticize the Realist model of IR as being inheritably immoral. The reason for this is that, as it is being seen from this model’s perspective, it is thoroughly natural for different countries to be preoccupied with trying to weaken each other as the main purpose of their existence – something that presupposes both the “anarchic” essence of IR and the fact that, in full accordance with the von Clausewitz’s suggestion, war is indeed best defined as the “continuation of diplomacy”.

It is understood, of course, that due to this discursive quality of Realism, it can hardly be deemed consistent with the Western politicians’ tendency to deploy Constructivist rhetoric in their speeches. Nevertheless, there is a good reason to believe that this particular criticism of Realism not undermine the theory’s overall ability to enlighten people on how they should regard politics, in general, and what should be considered the significance of the current political developments, in particular.

Literature Review

China’s Official Position on OBOR

Even though it has only been four years since President Xi Jinping came up with the idea of OBOR, there is plenty of information available as to the Chinese government’s official view of the initiative and its aims. What will help even further, within the context of how one may go about gathering the relevant data, in this regard, is that the governmental endorsement of OBOR correlates well with what has been China’s philosophy of international relations since the late seventies when Deng Xiaoping became the CPC’s Chairman.

The main principle of this philosophy can be formulated as “accumulating potency while trying to avoid any direct confrontation with its geopolitical competitors” (Nie, 2016, p. 426). In this respect, China’s strategy has been concerned with presenting its socioeconomic developmental projects as such that are not being affected by the Chinese government’s geopolitical considerations. In fact, it is a common practice among China’s diplomats to deny that that there may be any possibility for their country’s agenda to be even slightly Realist.

For example, according to China’s ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming (2015), “The Chinese mind is never programmed around geopolitical or geoeconomic theory…. (OBOR) is a public product for the good of the whole world” (para. 5). China’s top-officials also tend to discuss OBOR in conjunction with what accounts for the uniquely Chinese outlook on what the practice of conducting international affairs by a particular country should be all about.

In its turn, this outlook derives out of the concept of hexie shijie (harmonious world), which has served as a guiding principle behind the formation of China’s stance on “global governance” ever since the 20^th century’s late nineties (Nordin, 2016, p. 162). According to this concept, the key to peaceful coexistence between different nations is not concerned with “unification” (Western approach), but rather with the “respectful reconciliation of differences” – something that explains China’s commitment to the principle of “geopolitical multipolarity”, as the crucial precondition for lasting peace.

As of today, China continues to refer to OBOR as the best exemplification of such a commitment, on its part. Hence, the main characteristic of the Chinese government’s official position on OBOR – the accentuation of the initiative’s potential to serve as the instrument of “mutual beneficence” for the participating countries. According to the official statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2015), “The Belt and Road Initiative is… harmonious and inclusive.

It advocates tolerance among civilizations… The Initiative seeks mutual benefit. It accommodates the interests and concerns of all parties involved, and seeks a conjunction of interests” (Vision and Actions, 2015, para. 13). The actual logic behind such a point of view on OBOR has to do with the Chinese government’s officially proclaimed adherence to the principle of “systemic” (or “synergistic”) thinking, within the context of how it indulges in the IR-related policy-making. For example, according to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “OBOR will be sensitive to the comfort level of other parties, ensure transparency and openness, align with the development strategies of other participants and create synergies with existing regional cooperation mechanisms” (Sidaway & Woon, 2017, p. 6).

In its turn, the notion of systemic interconnectedness presupposes that when it comes to solving a particularly complex global issue, stakeholders must be thoroughly aware that their active involvement, in this respect, may bring about a number of the non-linear/counterintuitive and consequently unforeseen effects. Partially, this explains why in their public speeches and interviews, the Chinese top-officials insist that OBOR is by no means intended to destabilize the geopolitical balances on the planet.

Quite to the contrary – according to them, the initiative’s coming into the project-stage will provide a powerful boost to the growth of regional economies and help lessening the severity of the socioeconomic and political tensions in the areas adjacent to OBOR. As Xi Jinping pointed out, “Greater financial cooperation between China and the new Silk road countries should encourage deeper integration of markets, backed by the increased use of the renminbi for trade and financial transactions” (Lo, 2015, p. 55).

It is understood, of course, that the above-mentioned implies that Chinese leaders are keen on promoting the specifically post-positivist/Constructivist outlook on the significance of OBOR. The reason for this is apparent – in full accordance with the earlier outlined Constructivist paradigm of IR, China’s conceptualization of the concerned initiative implies that the manner in which international actors relate to each other is reflective of the varying extent of their overall advancement, as the spatially stable geopolitical entities.

After all, China’s official position on OBOR presupposes that to be able to take full advantage of the initiative, the government of a participant-country must be capable of thinking “long-term” – something commonly perceived denoting the possession of a “higher state of consciousness”, on the affiliated bureaucrats’ part.

What contributes even further towards legitimizing the Chinese government’s formal view of OBOR is that there are indeed many reasons to think of the initiative as being indicative of the country’s commitment to the earlier mentioned hexie shijie principle in the domain of IR. The most important of them will be specified in the following sub-chapter, with regard to the OBOR-related aspects of what accounts for current Sino-Russian entente.

OBOR and China’s Conceptualization of Global Governance

One of the reasons why the Chinese government’s official view of OBOR is often regarded perfectly viable is that it naturally derives from the distinctively Chinese outlook on what should be the philosophy of global governance – the concept that emerged in the early 2000s. It draws rather heavily from the ideology of neo-Liberalism, on one hand, and the Constructivist theory of IR, on the other, while remaining essentially Eurocentric.

Probably the most prominent indication that this is indeed the case can be seen the fact that the concerned concept revolves around the assumption that the international community (headed by the US) has the right to meddle in the internal affairs of independent countries to prevent the violation of people’s “human rights” on the locale. There has even been coined up a term for this assumption – Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Nevertheless, even though the Chinese government did announce its willingness to take an active part in addressing the issues of global importance, there is an unmistakably Confucian quality to how it intends to do this. As Lai-Ha, Lee and Chan (2008) noted, “China perceives global governance as an international means to building an inclusive international society in which nation-states of diverse cultures, ideologies and politico-economic systems can coexist in peace and harmony” (p. 15). It is understood, of course, that this suggestion directly relates to the officially proclaimed purpose of OBOR of helping the project’s would-be participants to become prosperous nations – regardless of what happens to be the adopted form of political governing, on their part.

Because the above-stated implies that the political dynamics are reflective of the international community’s conscious stance on the matters of global importance, there can be very little doubt about the fact that there is a strong Constructivist overtone to China’s view of global governance. At the same time, however, the Chinese officials never hesitate criticizing the collective West for its preoccupation with trying to preserve its geopolitical dominance on the planet at any cost and impose its values on everybody else as such that represent an undisputed truth-value. Moreover, as time goes on, the anti-Western rhetoric, on the part of the country’s official representatives, seems to become ever more categorical.

There is even more to it. China persists with strengthening its “soft power” in just about every region of the world – done mainly by mean of investing in the infrastructural projects of country-donors. Because of this, and because of China’s promotion of state-multilateralism, as the conceptual foundation of global governance, the country’s current stance in the arena of IR objectively contributes towards weakening the West’s geopolitical dominance on this planet.

This is exactly the reason why the US governmental officials tend to refer to China (along with Russia) in terms of an acute geopolitical threat to America. Therefore, there can be very little effectiveness to the “global governance”-related cooperation between the US and China – the law of historical dialectics predetermines such a state of affairs by rendering both countries natural competitors.

The above-stated once again illustrates that there is indeed a good reason to think that, even though China does subscribe to the idea that the globally scaled issues are better addressed by the international community, as a whole, the country’s government is mainly focused on exploring the practical (in relation to China) benefits of global governance.

Probably the main of them has to do with the fact that, as the country that actively participates in tackling the problems of a global magnitude, China is able to act on behalf of its national interests in the thoroughly Realist manner while using Constructivist rhetoric to conceal its expansionist agenda. This, in turn, provides China with the strategic advantage of being able to exert the ever-stronger influence on the political dynamics in the world while avoiding the risk to end up in the state of open confrontation with the US – the country that continues to stick to its pledge to establish the unipolar “world order”.

OBOR and China’s View on “Soft Power”

As it appears from the reviewed articles, many authors (especially Western-based) have made a point in discussing OBOR in conjunction with the notion of “soft power” while suggesting that as time goes on, the dynamics in the arena of international politics will continue parting away from the main conventions of the Realist model of IR. The logic behind this suggestion derives from the assumption that there is a positive correlation between the integrity of a particular country’s international reputation, on one hand, and the strength of its geopolitical positioning, on the other.

There can be only a few doubts that there is a prominent Constructivist sounding to such a point of view. However, the reviewed publications are also suggestive that it is much too early to assume that the world’s most powerful nations no longer rely on the “hard power” (military action/diplomatic pressure) means of competing with each other for the room under the Sun.

The Chinese OBOR initiative stands out rather illustrative, in this regard. The reason for this is apparent – the project’s completion will result in nothing short of transforming China’s geopolitical status from that of a “regional power” to a “global superpower”, in the full sense of this word. This simply could not be otherwise.

Being in control of the fully functioning OBOR project will allow China to gain access to many of the previously unreachable natural/human resources throughout Eurasia, win client states, ensure the accessibility of the EU market to the Chinese-made industrial goods, and strengthen the ruling authority of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Nevertheless, despite the clearly expansionist (Realist) nature of such a would-be development, OBOR continues to be deemed as such that advocates the principles of “non-aggression”, “non-interference” and “mutual benefit” in IR.

There are two ways to address the outlined inconsistency between the assumption that “soft power” must be necessarily democratic/ethical (in the Constructivist sense of this word), on one hand, and the fact that despite being a Communist country, China appears more than capable of using this type of power (as OBOR shows), on the other. It is either we deem China to be an exception to the rule, in this respect, or admit that the notion of “soft power” is best assessed through the conceptual lenses of Realism.

That is, regardless of what happened to be the formal qualities of a particular country’s international stance/political ideology, the main motivation for its government to consider applying “soft power” in the international arena of politics, is that it will help this country to reach the long-term objectives of economic proliferation, territorial expansion, and geopolitical dominance. While identifying and codifying the thematically relevant “clusters of meaning” in the selected articles through the empirical phase of this research, we will look to discover the interpretative indications that this is indeed the case.

Constructivist View of OBOR in Respect of Sino-Russian Entente

As it was noted earlier, one of the main features of the Constructivist approach to justifying the appropriateness of a particular sociopolitical initiative is emphasizing this initiative’s ability to prove beneficial to humanity, as a whole – something that the Chinese top-officials have been doing since the time of the OBOR’s official announcement in 2013. Essentially the same set of considerations is usually evoked by Russia’s governmental officials, within the context of how they go about explaining the rationale behind their country’s decision to become the initiative’s active participant.

The speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered during the 2017 OBOR Summit is quite illustrative, in this respect. While expounding on his vision of OBOR, Putin pointed out to that fact that the initiative’s implementation has been predetermined by the very logic of historical progress, “It is necessary to liberalize trade rules, unify regulatory norms for all kinds of products and create new transportation corridors and infrastructure capabilities (under OBOR).

It is important that all integration structures – both existing in Eurasia and newly formed – would rely on universal internationally recognized rules” (Russia’s OBOR Perspectives, 2017, para. 2). Evidently enough, Russia perceives OBOR to be consistent with its own national interest in making this world a more “orderly” place, in the sense of undermining the West’s capacity to violate the basic provisions of international law under the pretext of “protecting democracy”.

If accessed from this particular perspective, Russia’s participation in OBOR makes much sense as a “thing-in-itself”, even if there was not any economic rationale for this country to act as one of the initiative’s greatest supporters. Partially, this explains why as of today, the Russian government appears to be willing to turn a blind eye on the fact that the project’s eventual completion will diminish Russia’s influence in Central Asia.

One of the initiative’s officially proclaimed objectives is to provide an additional momentum to the pace of the participant-countries’ socioeconomic development by the mean of attracting substantial (mostly Chinese) investments into the economy’s infrastructural sector. In this regard, the common assumption is that by helping other countries to develop their economies, China will be in the position to reap the long-term benefit of being surrounded by the economically successful (and therefore politically stable) nation-states.

Because for the duration of the last three years Russia has been suffering from being subjected to economic sanctions (imposed by the West), this country’s government did welcome the Chinese proposition to play an important role in the establishment of OBOR, as something that would guarantee the inflow of financial investments in Russia’s economy from China. In particular, Russia is interested in using China’s OBOR-related investments to increase the efficiency of its economy’s energy sector – something that the Russian authorities believe can be achieved by integrating the EEU’s (Eurasian Economic Union) energy transporting system into the one that is going to be established within the infrastructural framework of OBOR. China also takes much interest in such would-be development, as something that will allow this country to reduce its dependency on having to bring 80% of its imported oil through the Malacca Strait (controlled by the US Navy).

As of this point, China came up with three major investments in Russia’s economy, as a part of proving itself a trustworthy OBOR-partner. The first of them is concerned with the 2014 decision of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to sign an agreement with Russia’s Gazprom (with its overall worth being estimated to account for $400 billion), according to which the latter will supply natural gas to China for the duration of 30 years at the price of $350 per thousand cubic meters.

An important part of this agreement was China’s pledge to invest $22 billion in the construction of the Skovorodino-Daqing pipeline, expected to play an important role in ensuring the operational integrity of the OBOR project’s energy network (Russia and China, 2014, para. 4). The second notable development, in this respect, took place in 2016, when China’s Silk Road Fund decided to acquire 9% of shares in the Russian company Yamal LNG and invest $6 billion in the development of this company’s gas-liquefying facilities in Northern Siberia (Simola, 2016, p. 16).

Finally, we can mention the fact that in the same year the Fund’s representatives signed yet another deal with the Russia’s largest petrochemical corporation SIBUR – the event that resulted in institutionalizing the Silk Road Fund as this corporation’s major shareholder (10% stake in SIBUR, 2016, para. 1). Nevertheless, even though the last two deals did help to revitalize the Russia’s energy sector, the comparatively low scale of the associated financial investments fell short of this country’s initial expectation.

The source of additional concern, as it was seen by the Russians, proved to be the fact that while negotiating the 2016 deals, the Chinese asked the Russian government to assume certain financial obligations, as well. In its turn, this prompted some Russian political observers to express their doubts as to whether the Russia’s participation in OBOR is indeed vital for the country.

There is a certain paradoxical quality to Russia’s commitment to cooperating with China within the context of how the latter goes about promoting its OBOR-related agenda. The rationale behind this suggestion has to do with the fact that, unlike what it is the case the Chinese centrally planned economy, the functioning of Russia’s economy is governed by the “invisible hand of the market”. Because of this and because Russia has been experiencing an acute economic recession since 2014, which causes the country’s GDP to decrease by 0.5%-1% on an annual basis, the Russian government is in no position to afford the luxury of investing in the long-term infrastructural projects (such as OBOR).

The validity of this idea can be illustrated even further, regarding the fact that, as it will be shown in the next sub-chapter, OBOR is hardly compatible with Russia’s own socioeconomic and geopolitical objectives in Eurasia. Nevertheless, Russia continues to remain rather enthusiastic about being provided with the opportunity to contribute to the Chinese initiative in question.

One of the available explanations to such a seeming phenomenon can be formulated in conjunction with the Constructivist idea that the behavior of international actors can no longer be deemed utterly selfish (“anarchic”), because in today’s world the measure of a particular country’s geopolitical competitiveness positively relates to its willingness to act on behalf of humanity, as a whole. If Russia’s attitude towards OBOR is affected by the mentioned idea, this means that the prospect of being able to benefit from OBOR economically does not unilaterally define the country’s current stance on the Chinese initiative.

Given the Russia’s traditional affiliation with the virtue of collectivism (as opposed to individualism) and also the country’s legacy of having provided much economic aid to the developing countries throughout the Soviet period of its history, it will be appropriate to hypothesize that OBOR primarily appeals to Russia as the instrument of helping to make this world a better place. The logic behind such a hypothetical suggestion, on our part, has to do with the initiative’s officially announced objectives to standardize trade regulations in Eurasia and to foster economic development in countries alongside the Silk Road’s land-based and maritime corridors.

Realist View of OBOR in Respect of Sino-Russian Entente

In the previous sub-chapter, we pointed out to the fact that even though the Russian government has remained strongly supportive of OBOR since its introduction in 2013, many of the country’s prominent politicians/political analysts remain skeptical about whether the Russia’s participation in it is fully justified. One the reasons for this is concerned with the traditional popularity of the Realist theory of IR in this country. After all, if evaluated through the conceptual lenses of Realism, a number of the initiative’s qualitative aspects will appear rather inconsistent with China’s official view of it, on one hand, and with Russia’s own geopolitical agenda, on the other.

In this respect, the sheer vagueness of the Chinese government’s conceptualization of OBOR stands out particularly notable. This simply could not be otherwise, because despite the tendency of China’s top-officials to refer to OBOR as the tangible tool for facilitating economic prosperity in Eurasia, it still remains unclear when will the initiative in question attain the status of a well-planned and funded project with the workable timetable for implementing its sub-sequential phases.

As Aoyama (2016) noted, “Specific policies pertaining to One Belt, One Road are still being developed, and the domestic system and cooperative relations with other nations relating to the implementation of One Belt, One Road are still being created” (p. 13).

In Russia, this is often seen as the indication that OBOR has a “hidden” agenda, which does not quite correlate with the publicly asserted one. Because up to this date, China’s foreign infrastructural investments have been closely followed by the establishment of the so-called “Confucius Institutes” in the recipient-countries, many Russians perceive OBOR to be yet another instrument for expanding China’s “soft power”, as something that has a value of its own. It is understood, of course, that such an outlook on the significance of OBOR evokes the Realist theory of IR, according to which it is namely the politics that define economics and not the other way around.

Another indication that it is primarily the non-economic considerations that delineate Sino-Russian entente, with respect to OBOR, has to do with the apparent dichotomy between the officially proclaimed purpose of both countries’ involvement in the initiative and the fact that during the last few years the worth of trade turnover between China and Russia has been declining.

According to Simola (2016), “The development of goods trade between Russia and China has been visibly poorer in 2014-15 than in the preceding years… Trade turnover between countries fell from nearly 100 billion USD in 2012-13 to less than 70 billion USD in 2015” (p. 10). Because the Chinese and Russian officials continue to praise OBOR on account of the initiative’s presumed ability to strengthen economic ties between both countries, the described situation does not appear to make much sense.

The Realist paradigm in IR, however, helps to explain it. Apparently, China and Russia use their participation in OBOR to prove to each other that their geostrategic priorities are mutually complimentary – something that is supposed to establish the discursive precondition for the eventual formalization of a military alliance between both countries. Such an eventual development is predetermined by the fact that it is now perfectly clear to the Chinese and Russian governments that:

1. a full-scale confrontation with the collective West is inevitable,
2. both countries will have a better chance of winning in this confrontation if they address the associated challenges uniformly.

In its turn, this implies that the economic costs of the continual geostrategic cooperation between Russia and China, as well as the specifics of this cooperation’s format, cannot be deemed particularly relevant – all in full accordance with the Realist provision that economics is secondary to politics (money is secondary to power).

The fact that China and Russia are equally interested in ensuring the operational integrity of OBOR does not mean that while collaborating through the initiative’s implementational phases, these countries will not strive to undermine each other’s geopolitical influence as an integral part of the process. The foremost reason for this is that both countries, in fact, represent two distinctively unique civilizations – each with its own set of geopolitical objectives.

What this means is that that the alliance (either formal or informal) between China and Russia can never be long-lasting. There are, however, a number of the purely “technical” motives for both nations to remain highly suspicious of each other’s de facto agenda, within the context of how they strive to take practical advantage of being the initiative’s active participants. In this respect, Russia’s OBOR-related concerns are especially exemplary. After all, it does make much sense for the Russian government to feel uneasy about what may account for the effects of the Silk Road’s modern reestablishment – contrary to the country’s formally supportive stance on the Chinese initiative in question.

The legitimacy of this statement is most easily illustrated, regarding the fact that OBOR interferes with Russia’s own plans for the infrastructural development of Central Asia under the auspices of the Russian-controlled EEU. As Simola (2016) observed, “The Russian and Chinese projects overlap especially in the area of Central Asia with e.g. Kazakhstan being a member of the EEU and also a leg in many of the transport corridors sketched under the OBOR… At the launch of the OBOR, Russia was indeed quite wary of its implications” (p. 9).

What intensifies Russia’s concern about OBOR even further is the fact that the establishment of the Silk Road Economic Belt/SREB (the initiative’s crucial element) will automatically result in undermining the economic feasibility of the land-based transportation network in the country’s Eastern part. According to Gabuev (2016), “Moscow fears that SREB will overtake the role of major land based transit route from Asia to Europe at the expense of Trans-Siberian railway (TSR)… thus decreasing Russian budget’s and the Russian Railway’s income” (p. 66). This alone constitutes a strong enough rationale for Russia to consider erecting obstacles in the way of the OBOR’s practical actualization while continuing to maintain the posture of the Chinese initiative’s greatest supporter.

Nevertheless, Russia’s biggest “Realist” fear of OBOR has to do with the initiative’s potential capacity to bring disarray into the functioning of the EEU – the development that will result in weakening Russia’s influence in Central Asia. This fear is not altogether groundless because Beijing never ceased claiming that it has the right to sign OBOR-related agreements with the EEU members on a bilateral basis – hence, countering Russia’s insistence that this type of agreements must be multilateral (Gabuev, 2016, p. 77).

To add even more to the process of Russia growing ever more cautious about OBOR, China does not exhibit much enthusiasm sticking to the initiative’s provision that by deciding to take part in it, a particular country will be automatically approved to receive infrastructural investments from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund. Russia sees it as yet additional indication that the initiative’s official objectives serve the purpose of concealing China’s intention to use OBOR as the enabling tool of its “soft power” expansion eastwards.

Preliminary Insights

After having conducted the Literature Review part of this study, we were able to identify a number of distinctive qualities to China’s approach to the formation of its foreign policies, in general, and the Chinese government’s international promotion of OBOR, in particular. They can be outlined as follows:

The Chinese believe that the 21^st century’s resurrection of the Silk Road has been objectively predetermined by the growing economic interdependency between different countries – especially in Eurasia. In this regard, the initiative’s assumed purpose is to act as the powerful catalyst of trade throughout the continent. This vision of OBOR correlates with China’s conceptualization of global governance, reflective of the Constructivist assumption that the global issues of economic, environmental and societal importance presuppose the appropriateness of the specifically collective approach to addressing them.

As Hongsong (2014) noted, “By creating and acting through various international institutions, states manage global issues beyond borders collectively, thus construct and maintain global order” (p. 121). Consequently, this implies that the ongoing process of this world becoming increasingly “multipolar” is the crucial precondition for the OBOR’s successful implementation.

By assuming the role of the agent of global governance, China exhibits its willingness to play by the Western-set rules of the global geopolitical game – at least in the formal sense of this word. As the clearest indication that this indeed happened to be the case, can be seen the fact that, as time goes on, China strives to increase its participative involvement in a number of international organizations, such as the UN, IMF and WTO.

At the same time, however, the conducted literature review suggests that China’s agenda, in this respect, is practically driven. This particular insight appears to be concerned with to both the legacy of Confucianism in China, on one hand, and the

China’s approach to promoting OBOR as a part of its “global governance” strategy is deeply holistic, in the sense that the Chinese take into consideration the cause-effect repercussions of tackling global issues in the internationally cooperative manner. Just as it was implied in the Introduction, China refrains from referring to the task of solving the most pressing global problems. It is understood, of course, that the assumption that China is committed to building the “harmonious” (multipolar) world because of the ethical considerations, on its part, contributes even further towards legitimizing the Constructivist outlook on the nature of geopolitical dynamics in today’s world – the idea that can be found in many of the reviewed articles.

China is still a developing country, and its geopolitical ambitions are mainly concerned with the country’s strive to expand the sphere of its regional influence. Even though most authors do point out to the fact that China’s geopolitical power continues to grow exponentially, they nevertheless insist that this country’s interests are regionally bounded – not the least because China has not attained the status of a fully developed nation.

This, in turn, can be seen as the indication that while tackling the subject matter, most authors tend to assess the rise of China and the country’s OBOR-related agenda from the Eurocentric perspective, which can be interpreted as yet another sign that the provided argumentative claims, on their part, are biased to an extent.

The undertaken literature review implies that there is indeed much rationale to assessing the OBOR’s significance from the specifically Realist perspective. Many of the obtained insights, in this respect, are strongly commonsensical. For example, the fact that Chinese government is willing to invest billions and billions of dollars in the project leaves only a few doubts as to the fact that China intends to apply a continuous effort into maintaining the political stability across the area (no “democratic revolutions”).

Moreover, the very fact that OBOR is concerned with the establishment of at least four independent land corridors, appears to have a geostrategic significance. That is, China’s OBOR-enabled access to the EU market will not suffer much damage, even in cases when the flow of commercial goods through either of these corridors becomes obstructed or impossible, due to the rapid deterioration of the political/socio-economic situation in the adjacent areas. This suggests that one of the main considerations that prompted the Chinese China’s government to give “go ahead” to OBOR, had to do with the Chinese leaders’ realization that it is only a matter of time before their country will find itself confronting the US in one way or another.

The same can be said about the significance of the proposed shipping lane for the Maritime Silk Road, as well. Evidently enough, China needs an alternative maritime route for importing oil and natural gas from the Gulf, which would not be very vulnerable to the prospect of the US and its allies declaring a sea blockade on China, just as it had happened many times in the late 19th century. Thus, there is indeed much rationale in believing that, contrary to how China strives to present it to the world, OBOR is far from being deemed a strictly economic/infrastructural project.

Another clue, as to the “Realist” purpose of OBOR, is that as it was noted by many authors, the initiative’s announcement contributed to the growing disagreement between the US and EU, with respect to what should be the principles of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between them. Whereas the signing of this agreement (which presupposes the substantial lowering of trade-tariffs in Europe) by the EU countries may eventually result in the deindustrialization of these countries’ economies, the EU’s would-be willingness to choose in favor of pursuing the policy of economic cooperation with China should yield the opposite effect.

The reason for this is that, in exchange for a particular European country’s decision to take part in helping China to establish OBOR, the Chinese government promises to invest heavily in revitalizing this country’s infrastructural/industrial sector. What this means is that, along with helping to facilitate trade between China and Europe, OBOR will serve the purpose of weakening America’s economic influence on the EU – hence, making it more likely for China to win in the ongoing competition with the US for the European market of 500.000 million.

While reviewing the articles, it also did not escape our attention that many authors have made a point in discussing OBOR in conjunction with what accounts for the main aspects of the Chinese economy’s ongoing transformation. Probably the most notable of them is that as of 2018, the economy’s servicing sector is expected to begin contributing to the generation of GNP as much, as the country’s heavy industry currently does.

This, of course, should have caused the Chinese government to grow less enthusiastic about the idea of investing billions and billions of dollars in OBOR, as the instrument of helping this industry to maintain its competitive edge. Yet, we get to see something entirely opposite – as time goes on, China pledges to provide ever more financial incentives to the country-participants, while taking full advantage of the newly founded financial organizations under its control, such as the AIIB and ADB.

This once again presupposes the appropriateness of assessing OBOR from the Realist perspective. Apparently, OBOR is so much more about empowering China within the context of how it exercises its “soft power” than merely about increasing the efficiency of the economic transactions between this country and the rest of the world.

Findings/Analysis

The empirical inquiry’s initial part consisted of selecting the thematically relevant academic articles to be subjected to the critical discursive analysis (CDA), in order to identify and codify (with the help of the OpenCode software) the most prominent OBOR-related themes, motifs and argumentative statements in the them – the so-called “clusters of meaning”. There were three criteria for identifying a part of the text as the “cluster of meaning”:

1. it contained no fewer than five sentences,
2. it directly related to the OBOR’s global or Russia-related implications,
3. it resonated with either the Realist or Constructivist theory of IR.

The identified semiotic clusters were assigned with either the Constructivist (C), Realist (R), or Realist-Constructivist (R/C) (overlapping) connotative values. The numerical value of each cluster is concerned with how many times the codified suggestion in question resurfaces through the reading of all ten articles as a whole, regardless of its authorship. It was decided to limit the overall number of the would-be sampled articles to twenty – ten discussing OBOR within the global context, and ten outlining the initiative’s effects on the relationship between Russia and China.

The rationale behind such a decision, on our part, had to do with the fact that as of now, the number of published articles that discuss the OBOR’s effects on the Russo-Chinese relationship is severely limited. Because it was important to compare the OBOR’s global implications with those relevant to the Sino-Russian entente and ensure the would-be obtained data’s cross-sectional integrity, the number of the “global context” articles could not exceed ten. The sampling principle for the articles themselves was straight forward as well. They had to be scholarly, published through the years 2014-2017, and no shorter than 6-page long.

After having analyzed the first set (OBOR-Global context) of articles, we were able to detect the presence (and frequency) of the “clusters of meaning” as seen in the table below:

Contained abbreviations (with the exception of OBOR): TTIP – Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Thus, the overall number of the identified semiotic clusters in the first set of articles equals 174, out of which 80 have been determined to convey the message of Realism and 78 recognized consistent with the Constructivist outlook on IR. The remaining 16 clusters can be interpreted as such that correlate with both Realist and Constructivist models. This, however, does not imply that Realism and Constructivism are conceptually compatible. The R/C group’s identification took place because, even though it did prove possible to define the discursive significance of the affiliated themes/motifs/arguments, their referential context remained unclear.

While analyzing the group of articles that discuss OBOR in conjunction with Sino-Russian entente, we were able to codify even more “clusters of meaning” that fit the earlier specified criteria. In its turn, this can be explained by the fact that, as compared to the ones that discuss OBOR within the global context, they are much more elaborative (due to being size-wise lengthier).

The total number of the identified discursive assertions in the “OBOR-Russian Context” articles equals 178. Out of them, 115 adhere to the Realist provisions of IR and 40 have a strongly Constructivist sounding to them. 15 “clusters of meaning” have been defined to be capable of conveying either the Realist or Constructivist message, depending on the discursive context, within which they are to be assessed. We have also located a few textual references that despite being utterly informative, do not allow us to relate them to either of the mentioned IR theories. They have been given a question mark to denote their qualitative subtlety.

It must be noted that the identified semiotic clusters in each article did not always correlate with the affiliated author’s argumentative stance. Moreover, it also came to our attention that just about every analyzed article from both sets contains mutually contradictory suggestions. Partially, this can be explained by the fact that many authors have made a point in trying to enlighten readers on the whole range of varying (and often incompatible) conceptualizations of OBOR.

Another explanation, in this regard, has to do with the fact that, just as we have hypothesized initially, the rationale-based argumentative reasoning of many political experts is likely to be affected by their irrational anxieties, with respect to a particular IR phenomenon that they analyze.

The Table below represents the identified pro and contra “clusters of meaning” with respect to their potential effects on the continuation of the Sino-Russian OBOR-related cooperation.

As one can infer from it, out of 33 identified clusters that justify Russia’s decision to become an active participant of, 15 convey the message of Realism, 12 adhere to the provisions of Constructivism, 5 happened to be of the “mixed” nature, with 1 having been deemed discursively ambivalent. There have also been identified 25 clusters that presuppose the sheer impossibility for Russia and China to indulge in the long-term collaboration under the auspices of OBOR, out of which 20 are Realist, 4 “mixed”, and 1 “ambivalent”, with the absence of any Constructivist ones whatsoever. In its turn, this provides us with two important clues: 1.

There is a strongly defined circumstantial quality to what may account for the practical implications of both IR-models, 2. The measure of different Constructivist ideas’ practical applicability (as the instrument of addressing a particular geopolitical development), positively relates to the extent of their conceptual compatibility with the Realist IR-theory, 3. It is possible for the government of a particular country to be driven by the considerations of Realist logic and yet to be acting in accordance with the provisions of Constructivism in IR.

The theoretical and practical significance of the empirically obtained data will be discussed at length in the study’s next sub-chapter. However, even at this point it is possible to outline what account for this data’s preliminary inferences:

• The Realist model of IR is indeed better suited for assessing genuinemotivations behind the governmental endorsement of the long-term socioeconomic initiatives, such as OBOR.
• Whereas it is possible (and even necessary) for just about any developed countryto resort to Constructivist conventions, as a part of justifying its essentially Realist agenda, the Constructivist line of political reasoning can hardly benefit from proving itself consistent with the Realist rationale in IR.
• It is specifically the objectively predetermined and continually transformedpolitical/geopolitical concerns of a particular country that define the actual logic of its economic development and not vice versa – just as we have hypothesized initially.

Discussion

In light of the study’s earlier outlined findings, it will be appropriate to confirm the overall validity of the initially proposed hypothesis that the Realist conceptualization of IR provides a much better discursive framework for assessing the significance of OBOR as compared to the Constructivist one. In fact, these findings imply that while formulating the study’s hypothetical premise, researchers were not quite realizing the sheer strength of the Realism model’s influence on the minds of contemporary political analysts.

For example, it was originally predicted that the number of the clearly Realist “clusters of meaning” in the first batch of articles (Global context) would not exceed that of the Constructivist ones. This, however, did not turn out to be the case. Quite to the contrary – even though the percentile margin between the identified Realist and Constructivist clusters in the “Global context” articles (45.9% vs. 44.8%) is not strongly defined, the former still surpass the latter numerically.

The most intuitively sound explanation to this particular finding would be consistent with the argumentative line of reasoning, applied to formulate the study’s hypothesis – the academic credibility of the Constructivist IR-model has eroded to the extent that even many of its affiliates no longer consider it necessary to adjust their argumentative viewpoints to be fully consistent with it. What validates this suggestion even further is the fact that even the most Constructivist-sounding articles from the selected sample contain elaborations on how China may use OBOR to expand it geopolitical influence.

Another possible clue, in this respect, may have to do with the with the seeming complimentary nature of two of the most frequently occurring “clusters of meaning”, as seen in Table 1. After all, it will indeed make much formal sense to suggest that the initiative’s introduction has been objectively predetermined by the process of the governments of more and more nations coming to realize the importance of mutual cooperation as something that leads toward economic prosperity and political stability. There is, however, a deep dichotomy between the notions of “mutual cooperation” and “geopolitics”.

The reason for this is apparent – whereas “mutual cooperation” presupposes the possibility of “mutual beneficence”, the concept of geopolitics derives from the axiomatic assumption that the cooperation between different countries always take place on a “contra” rather than “pro” basis. That is, the strongest incentive for countries to be willing to cooperate with each other is that the adoption of such policy, on their part, will increase their measure of their geopolitical competitiveness as something that has a value of its own. In its turn, this implies that:

1. cooperation is hardly possible between those nations that share the same border,
2. cooperation involving a few international actors can only take place on a short-term (tactical) basis.

This, of course, suggests that “mutual beneficence” cannot be the main principle of conducting international affairs by definition. Hence, the alternative interpretation of what accounts for the actual significance the discussed finding – it may be seen reflective of the process of Western-based political analysts/politicians becoming less capable of grasping the essence of the relationship between causes and effects in the domain of international politics. This suggestion appears especially plausible with regard to the current geopolitical climate in the world, marked by the ongoing “decline of the West” as the formerly undisputed center of political decision-making on a global scale.

What is also quite notable about the identified semiotic clusters in the “Global context” batch is that those of them that adhere to the most fundamental Constructivist conventions appear to be the least frequent. To exemplify the validity of this statement we can refer to the negligible frequency-rate of the clusters that refer to OBOR as primarily the instrument of the Chinese economy’s diversification and promote the idea that the initiative will help the government ensuring the economy’s functional resilience and synergetic efficiency.

There have been detected only three Constructivist clusters that directly relate to one of the project’s most widely advertised official purposes – to serve as the enabling mechanism of socioeconomic progress in the developing countries throughout the world. This can be seen as yet another clue to the growing inadequateness of the Constructivist conceptualization of international politics.

At the same time, neither of the articles in the “Global context” sample can be deemed even moderately critical of the Chinese government’s insistence that OBOR is completely apolitical. In our view, the concerned inconsistency correlates well with the study’s hypothetical premise that there should be two connotative levels to the contents of just about every article selected for the analysis – explicit and implicit (or conscious and unconscious).

Even though the number of the positively identified Constructivist references in the first batch of articles is substantial, there is a strongly defined utilitarian sounding to many of them. Moreover, quite a few of these clusters intermingle with the ones that advocate the idea of assessing OBOR from the Realist perspective. For example, a number of the concerned semiotic referrals that stress out the initiative’s pragmatic objectives are used in conjunction with those that promote a Constructivist outlook on what OBOR is all about. In this respect, the clusters “OBOR is pragmatic/Chinese-centered” (10) and “OBOR seeks to undermine TTIP” (8) are particularly notable.

There are two equally applicable approaches to interpreting this particular observation, on our part. First, the concerned authors’ understanding of OBOR lacks cause-effect soundness. Second, as time goes on, the difference between the Realist and Constructivist approaches to discussing international politics becomes increasingly blurred. The second interpretation appears to be the most plausible because it takes into account the fact that the realities of a contemporary living cannot be discussed outside of what are the post-industrialism’s effects on how political analysts (as well as ordinary people) perceive the surrounding geopolitical reality (Mellander, Florida & Rentfrow, 2012, p. 35).

This interpretation is also consistent with the objective laws of history, which cause the seemingly stable socioeconomic formations and the theoretical models, used to conceptualize the vector of political developments in the world, to remain in a state of a continual transformation. In light of what has been mentioned earlier, there is a good rationale to expect that as the years come by, there will be more and more clearly Realist undertones to how political analysts reflect on the essence of international dynamics, in general, and the significance of OBOR, in particular.

Essentially the same can be said about the fact that, as the analysis of the first batch of articles revealed, there is an ambivalent discursive quality to 9.2 % of the codified “clusters of meaning”. The idea that OBOR will simultaneously serve the purposes of strengthening China’s geopolitical power and helping underdeveloped countries to embark on a number of different infrastructural undertakings (OBOR = selfishness + altruism), which defines the connotative semiotics of these clusters, is perfectly illustrative, in this regard.

Evidently enough, it is no longer appropriate referring to Constructivism and Realism as two mutually incompatible political theories. At the same time, however, it did not escape our attention that the ongoing “hybridization” of both IR-models has a strong Realist quality to it. That is, the initiative’s potential ability to prove beneficial to the country-participants is most commonly discussed as being secondary to the OBOR’s primary goal of establishing China as the world’s yet another superpower.

The research-relevant clues, contained in Table 2 (“Russian context”), appear to be even more supportive of the study’s main hypothesis. As it can be seen in it, 64.6% of the identified semiotic clusters are in perfect accord with the Realist paradigm of IR. The most frequently occurring cluster (Geopolitical situation brings Russia and China closer) can be referred to as the most enlightening one because it emphasizes the essentially non-economic nature of both countries’ willingness to cooperate under the initiative’s auspices.

The validity of this suggestion can be confirmed even further, regarding the fact that, as it can be inferred from the collected data of relevance, there is very little reason for Russia to be willing to endorse the Chinese initiative in question, as such that stands in contrast to Russia’s own geopolitical agenda in Eurasia. In particular, the Russian government has a good reason to fear that after having entered into the project stage, OBOR will make it much harder for this country to control its allies in Central Asia, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The initiative’s eventual implementation also threatens to undermine the functional efficiency of Russia’s railway system in the country’s Eastern part. At the same time, however, Russia acts as an enthusiastic supporter of OBOR. The most viable explanation, concerning the seemingly phenomenological essence of this particular observation, is best formulated with the Realist IR-theory in mind, according to which the continual cooperation between two equally powerful countries is most likely to be considered involuntary on both ends and that the concerned participants are driven to indulge in it by the considerations of strategic feasibility.

Because of the realities of the ongoing confrontation between the US and its allies (de facto vassals), on one hand, and Russia/China, on the other, the emerged morphogenetic patterns about the spatial representation of the codified “clusters of meaning” can be confirmed supportive of the study’s original thesis. The reason for this is that the conducted literature review and the discursive analysis of these clusters suggest that there is only one viable reason for Russia to support OBOR – by acting in such a manner, this country strives to prove to the Chinese government that the alliance between both countries is indeed possible.

Evidently enough, Russia considers the US a far bigger threat to its very existence as compared to the threat posed by the OBOR’s potential capacity to result in the Russian economy being overtaken by the Chinese. It is understood, of course, that this evidence-based insight correlates well with the Realist insistence that the economy is secondary to politics and not the vice versa.

It must be noted that there are many reasons to believe that the Chinese government considers OBOR to be the primarily political project as well. The analysis of the codified themes and motifs in the “Russian context” sample of articles leaves only a few doubts, in this respect, because a considerable share of them is indeed suggestive of the Chinese government’s OBOR-related expansionist agenda. The earlier conducted literature review supports the logical soundness of this suggestion as well.

After all, as one can infer from it, OBOR continues to lack a step-by-step implementation schedule – despite having been introduced three years and despite the government’s assurances that OBOR is a purely economic undertaking. Moreover, throughout the concerned period, China has never hesitated to use OBOR as a powerful instrument of altering the balance of powers on the continent. The most recent exemplification of this statement’s legitimacy is China’s decision to have the project’s Northern route bypassing Ukraine, contrary to the considerations of economic feasibility.

Therefore, the main interpretative clue as to the overall significance of the collected data can be formulated as follows: Far from being considered “natural allies”, Russia and China nevertheless choose to continue taking steps that will lead both countries towards entering into the formal alliance with each other in the future. Such a decision, on their part, is dictated by the specifics of the current geopolitical situation in the world, marked by the West’s unwillingness to allow the weakening of its geopolitical hegemony, on one hand, and the fact that the concerned development is nevertheless preset by the laws of historical progress, on the other.

Because Russia and China have been officially proclaimed to pose a threat to America by the US Department of State, it was only natural for both nations to begin closing together fast, just as it was the case during the 20^th century’s early fifties – all in full accordance with the Realist convention that there is necessarily a “negative” quality to the formation of economic and military alliances between different countries. That is, for two countries to be willing to act friendly toward each other, they must experience the fear of a presumably much more powerful common enemy.

Even though the Chinese and Russian expansionist agendas do overlap, there is a good reason for both countries to continue overlooking this fact for as long as the overall geopolitical climate on this planet requires them to act in such a manner. In this respect, the introduction of OBOR by the Chinese government came in very handy – it provides a perfectly justifiable reason for China and Russia to continue widening the extent of their economic and military cooperation while still allowing both countries much freedom within the context of how they go forming their foreign policies.

This is again best seen as the additional proof that the economic initiative in question is primarily driven by the consideration of geopolitical rationale. Hence, the continual absence of any governmentally certified timetable for implementing the initiative – it is quite impossible to tell for how much longer will China and Russia be required to remain “involuntarily allied” with each other. Nevertheless, most likely that it will not take much time for this notable peculiarity about OBOR to be taken care of – all due to the sheer inaptness with which the US proceeds to confront Russia and China, which naturally causes the initiative’s Chinese and Russian stakeholders to begin giving it a thought to what may account for the OBOR’s long-term implications.

In its turn, this inaptness goes to confirm the soundness of the earlier provided interpretative suggestion, as to what should be considered the significance of the Western-based political analysts’ tendency to combine Constructivist and Realist presupposition within the same “cluster of meaning”.

During the analysis, it also did not escape our attention that, just as it was the case with many Constructivist references recognized in the first batch of articles, a fair number of the C-codified ones in the “Russian context” sample appear fully consistent with the Realist take on international politics. The likewise, however, does not apply to the identified Realist “clusters of meaning” in it, with most of them appearing to convey the message of Realpolitik in the purest form possible.

The following R-codified referrals are the most illustrative, in this regard: “OBOR “stealing” Central Asia from RU (4)”, “RU’s interest in OBOR due to 2014 sanctions (5), “OBOR intensifies divisions within EEU (5)”. There is, however, even more to the data derived from analyzing the second set of articles. As it can be seen in Table 2, the second and third most numerous Realist clusters are, in fact, mutually incompatible. This simply could not be otherwise because one’s commonsense logic effectively denies the possibility for two countries to be simultaneously competitors and allies, at least in the factual (not merely formal) sense of this word.

However, such our observation correlates well with the Realist provision that the intrinsic logic of the relationship between different countries does not always make an easily recognizable linear sense. Just as it being the case with the relationship between individuals, for as long as the engaged parties believe that there are numerous long-term benefits to be derived from it, they will be likely to turn a blind eye on this relationship’s short-term inconsistencies.

The comparison of the data contained in both tables reveals that there is a prominent discrepancy between the Constructivism/Realism percentile ratios in each of them. Such our observation appears phenomenological to an extent. After all, what psychologists know about the functioning of one’s cognitive apparatus presupposes that people are naturally inclined to assume that the global implications of a particular socioeconomic issue define the essence of this issue’s regionally-scaled extrapolations.

Therefore, there should have been observed many similarities between the spatial distribution/quality of the identified clusters in each of the analyzed textual bulks. However, as it can be seen by comparing both Tables, the Realist themes/motifs occur in the second batch of articles at a much higher rate. There can be provided a few alternative explanations for the finding in question. The most intuitively sound of them can be formulated as follows: To be able to provide a fully credible Russia-contexted account of OBOR, the authors had to focus on researching the practical aspects of how the Chinese initiative affects the quality of the relationship between China and Russia.

This has led them to realize that the declarative purposes of OBOR do not necessarily correlate with how the governments of both countries perceive the de facto significance of the concerned initiative. The authors of the “Global context” of articles, on the other hand, appear to have been tempted to discuss the issue in conjunction with the Chinese government’s official stance on OBOR, as such that adheres to the provisions of the Constructivist discourse in the West. This again can be referred to as the indication that it is namely the Realist outlook on OBOR that should be considered the most enlightening – in full accordance with the study’s hypothetical premise.

The mapping of the identified “clusters of meaning” (as seen in Table 3) in the second batch of articles provides us with a number of additional insights into the study’s subject matter. Probably the most prominent of them is that, as it can be inferred from this Table, the fact that there are many objective reasons for China and Russia to be tempted to perceive each other in terms of a natural competitor (and potentially an enemy), does not presuppose the impossibility for both countries to choose in favor of becoming close partners, in the economic and military senses of this word.

In fact, it is namely the codified Realist specifics of Sino-Russian entente that appear to contribute the most towards causing the Russian government to support OBOR – whatever improbable such our observation may be. Among them, the intensification of geopolitical tensions between China and Russia, on one hand, and the US, on the other (codified as “Geopolitical situation brings RU and CH closer”) deserves special attention.

The reason for this is that, contrary to the Constructivist outlook on what motivates different nations to choose in favor of becoming ever more economically interdependent, there is the strong “negative” overtone to both countries’ willingness to cooperate under the auspices of OBOR. In plain words, it is specifically the fact that China and Russia feel increasingly threatened by the US that validates OBOR in the eyes of both the Chinese and Russian governments, not the initiative’s officially declared purpose to serve as the agent of economic prosperity in Eurasia and the rest of the world. This particular evidence-based suggestion stands out to confirm the soundness of the Realist idea that there is always a strong geopolitical logic to the formally apolitical economic projects of global magnitude.

The validity of this suggestion can be confirmed even further, regarding the abundance of many irreconcilable differences between how China and Russia tend to perceive OBOR and its purposes – something that should impede the process of the initiative’s practical implementation. For example, whereas China insists that countries should be allowed to participate in OBOR on a bilateral basis, Russia is clearly uncomfortable with the Chinese insistence, in this respect.

The reason for this apparent – the legitimation of the bilateral outlook on the OBOR-related contractual obligations that will be faced by the initiative’s potential participants, is likely to result in weakening Russia’s control over the EEU. This, however, does not seem to have much effect on Russia’s willingness to take an active part in OBOR. The most plausible explanation to the illogicality in question will again bring in mind the Realist idea that there is a “positivist” quality to the formation of the relationship between two border-sharing countries.

That is, the Russian government believes that there would be more negative consequences to its refusal to support OBOR, as compared to the scope of such consequences that would derive from the Russia’s hypothetical decision not to become involved in the Chinese initiative. Simultaneously, the above-stated presupposes that the Sino-Russian cooperation under the project’s auspices is likely to prove short-lived. That is, of course, if the ongoing confrontation between these countries and the US does not last infinitely, which is a rather improbable scenario. After all, as history shows, the switching of geopolitical balances on this planet has never been too lengthy of a process.

As the indirect proof of this suggestion’s validity can be seen the fact that, as it was mentioned earlier, 36.4 % of the clusters that justify Russia’s decision to become actively involved in OBOR appear to be of the unmistakably Constructivist essence. Many of them are best defined as being rhetorically/ideologically-driven, such as the one concerned with accentuating China’s respect for Russia. This, of course, undermines their discursive soundness to an extent.

At the same time, however, a fair number of the OBOR-supporting Constructivist references seem thoroughly viable, even if assessed through the lenses of IR-Realism. In this regard, the cluster “Putin and Xi trust each other” stands out particularly illustrative, as there can be only a few doubts that the factor of mutual trust between both leaders does contribute substantially towards strengthening Sino-Russian entente.

Nevertheless, as psychologists are well aware of, there is nothing too constant about this factor within the context of how two individuals pursue an interpersonal relationship, especially if considering each other competitors. This particular consideration correlates well with the suggestion that there are many objective reasons for Russia’s attitude toward OBOR to adopt ever newer qualities as time goes on.

There is even more to it – what has been said in the previous paragraph provides a partial answer as to why many of the identified Constructivist justifications for Russia to proceed with taking an ever more active part in OBOR appear perfectly consistent with the Realist ones. Apparently, this has to do with the former being “psychologically sound”. To illustrate what we mean by that, it will be appropriate to refer to the idea (codified as “CH and RU identities overlap”) that there is much in common between the Chinese and Russian national identities, especially with respect to the tendency to profess the so-called “collective values”, frequently exhibited by both the Chinese and Russians.

After all, this particular idea can only be deemed viable if we are to assume that the specifics of one’s ethnocultural affiliation affect the workings of his or her psyche. Even though this assumption would conform to the Constructivist accentuation of “ideational” factors as such that play a crucial role in defining the essence of IR-dynamics, it simultaneously invalidates the Constructivist belief that it is possible to work out a universally recognizable code of IR-ethics. Evidently enough, the above-mentioned can be seen suggestive of the fact that there are intrinsic inconsistencies within the very core of the Constructivist IR-paradigm.

It is understood, of course, that there is a certain speculative quality to what has been said earlier. Nevertheless, its negative effect is reduced by the fact that just about every of the provided interpretive insights is consistent with the “devil is in the details” principle of deductive reasoning. The same can be said about the chosen methodological approach to conducting this study – even though there was nothing easy about examining the issue in the “as-it-happens” mode, our study stands out to testify that it is indeed possible.

An additional indication that there is an objective value to the undertaken research can be deemed the fact that, in the aftermath of having gone through its empirical phases, we were able to identify the areas on which researchers should focus their attention in the future while examining the OBOR-related issues. This will be covered in the study’s concluding part.

Conclusion

In light of the earlier acquired analytical and interpretative insights into the study’s subject matter, the initially posed questions can be addressed as follows:

It is specifically the current dynamics on the global IR-arena, defined by the continual “decline of the West”, on one hand, and the geopolitical rise of the “global periphery”, on the other, which contributed towards the Chinese government’s decision to come up with the idea of OBOR more than anything else did. The reason for this is that, in accordance with yet another Realist provision, in the world of international politics there can be no lasting power-voids.

In this respect, it appears highly symbolic that the official announcement of OBOR took place in 2014 – the year that marked the beginning of the most recent confrontation between Russia and the US, which in turn predetermines the continual weakening of America’s influence in Central Asia. Evidently enough, China has realized itself being in the position to claim the European market for itself, despite the fact that this directly challenges the geopolitical interests of the US in the Eastern hemisphere. The Chinese government’s secondary objective, in this regard, is to impose an informal/”soft power” control over the economies of the project’s anticipated participants in Central Asia. Hence, the fact that as it was noted by many authors, there is a good reason to doubt that OBOR will ever prove economically feasible.

There are a number of ways in OBOR adds to the strengthening of China’s “soft power”. The most important of them, however, appears to be concerned with the fact that OBOR legitimizes the country’s intention to exercise such a power in the first place, as the international agent in possession of the de facto sovereignty. After all, as it was revealed earlier, there is a good reason for the US to oppose the Chinese initiative in question.

However, there is very little that the US government can do while trying to erect obstacles in the way of the initiative’s successful implementation. Consequently, this goes to confirm the validity of the specifically Chinese conceptualization of a “superpower” as a country that does not take orders from others – something that automatically results in attracting more financial investments in the Chinese economy. This once again exposes the erroneousness of the Constructivist belief that due to being gnoseologically different, the terms “politics” and “economics” do not quite overlap.

As of today, OBOR continues to exert a largely positive effect on the relationship between China and Russia. This simply could not be otherwise – the Sino-Russian cooperation under the initiative’s auspices provides the necessary precondition for both the Chinese and Russian economies to become much more interconnected and consequently more effective, in the functional sense of this word. In its turn, this justifies even further the idea that Russia and China should consider formalizing their factual alliance. At the same time, however, there is no guarantee that the described situation will last into the future, especially given the fact that both countries compete for the essentially the same geopolitical resource (Central Asia).

Even though the insights obtained through conducting the literature review and analyzing the codified “clusters of meaning” imply that OBOR is most adequately assessed in conjunction with the provisions of Realist IR-model, it appears that the initiative’s developmental logic has been affected by a number of the essentially Constructivist considerations as well. This particular observation, on our part, implies that the Realist and Constructivist outlooks on IR are compatible to a much further extent than most political analysts would be willing to admit.

It is most likely that as time goes on, the practical implementation of the Chinese initiative will continue to have a fostering effect on the popularization of “geopolitical multipolarity” as the guiding principle of IR. Consequently, this will provide the US government with even more incentives to think of China in terms of a “natural enemy”, especially if China and Russia keep on drifting closer together. As OBOR continues to come ever closer to the point when it acquires the status of a project, it is also likely that more and more countries within the EU (particularly Germany and France) will perceive the prospect of signing any free-trade agreements with the US increasingly unfeasible. This will result in undermining Pax Americana even further. Therefore, it will only be logical to suggest that the current escalation of military tensions in the Pacific directly relates to the China’s OBOR-related agenda.

What has also been revealed during the research is that the foremost precondition for OBOR to prove a success (political stability in the participating countries) presupposes that there will continue to remain much uncertainty about whether the Chinese initiative will succeed or not throughout the implementational process’s entirety. This again raises a certain doubt about whether the Chinese government’s conceptualization of OBOR should be given much thought by just about anyone who researchers the thematically relevant matters.

One of the study’s aims was to determine the discursively relevant issues on which researchers should consider focusing their attention in the future. One of such issues is concerned with the fact that, as the undertaken research reveals, the political analysts’ tendency to assess the significance of OBOR in one way or another has a circumstantial quality to it. That is, the authors of those articles that discuss the global implications OBOR seem to have been driven to downplay the concerned initiative’s capacity to serve as the instrument of Realpolitik. We have already provided what can be deemed the most plausible explanations, in this regard.

These explanations, however, are far from being considered exhaustive – there is much more to the issue than meets the eye. And, there can be only a few doubts about the importance of leaving as little uncertainty as possible, within the context of how a particular IR-related matter is being researched. By subjecting the specified issue to the analytical inquiry, researchers will be able to find many additional clues, as to what causes the current IR-discourse to have a distinctively “post-industrial” quality. It is understood, of course, that this would require researchers to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to applying such an inquiry.

It will be appropriate to conclude this study by reaffirming the overall soundness of the initially proposed thesis. After all, it was not only that we were able to confirm the dominance of the Realist “clusters of meaning” in both batches of articles, but also to provide a logically sound interpretation of the concerned finding’s actual significance. Apparently, there is indeed a good reason to expect that the Realist theory of IR will remain perfectly viable for years to come, even if it continues to be deemed outdated by the political analysts that adhere to the provisions of the Constructivist conceptualization of IR.

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