Does China's Belt and Road Initiative Challenge the Liberal,Rules-Based Order?

Rising powers like China are frequently depicted as posing a significant challenge to prevailing,Western-designed norms of global governance.Unsurprisingly,Chinas Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)has been described as an assertive grand strategy bent on reconstituting regional or even global order with new governance ideas,norms and rules.Conversely,this paper argues that BRFs challenge to existing global norms will mostly be unintentional.Through an analysis of key policy documents,it demonstrates that the BRFs normative content is pro-market and pluralist,failing to attack or present anything like a systematic alternative to the existing liberal order.Nonetheless,aspects of BRFs implementation will challenge prevailing global governance norms,particularly those relating to investment,aid,and social and environmental protection-but mostly by accident,not design.This is due to the fragmented governance of BRI inside China.Accordingly,BRI will likely erode established norms without offering any coherent alternative.