1 - China's BRI in Moral Politics: Transforming Third World Policy and Beyond.

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This study argues that the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), which was born in 2013, is an extension of China's Third World diplomacy, which China has conducted in accordance with its own identity, worldview, and interests in the changing international environment since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 until today. It also reveals that China, which has traditionally regarded morality and power as two sides of the same coin under the influence of Confucianism, has used moral arguments to justify its actions toward third countries and secure its national interests regardless of the changing times through moral politics. This study also identifies its implications for the advent of the Asian Century.

To this end, this study reveals that China's moral politics, positioning itself as a moral leader, aims to overcome its own challenges and maximize its interests through solidarity with the weak, has been reproduced from Mao's Third World diplomacy to Xi Jinping's BRI today. Given that the moral imperatives, while sometimes embarrassing to China, have been adapted and transformed to help advance China's national interests, and that the decade-long history of the BRI, as well as Mao's Third World diplomacy, largely reflects this context, this study characterizes the Chinese morality inherent in the BRI as a "dependent morality." It also predicts that China's moral politics with these characteristics may continue to be deployed in Asia in the future, widening the perception gap between China and Asian countries.