The strategic economic objectives of BRI are therefore to accept increased financial risk for the potential of higher and quicker returns before these constraints become binding. Yet, given growing demographic and economic constraints, the PRC does not believe that time is on its side.
For the PRC, a major source of this legitimacy is the maintenance of growing living standards for the Chinese population. The sources of Chinese conduct are similar to those that motivated the Soviet Union (USSR)-the drive to maintain regime legitimacy domestically and mitigate against external threats. This paper argues that while the nature and context of current strategic competition are vastly different than what existed in the second half of the twentieth century, many lessons from the US grand strategy of containment remain instructive. Strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for economic opportunities and political influence in the developing world has been compared to Cold War competition for the “Third World” between the United States and the Soviet Union, particularly since the launch of the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.
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