China’s Belt-Road Strategy : Xinjiang’s Role in a System without America

Abstract

Xi introduced China’s Silk Road Economic Belt concept and Twenty-First Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) to promote maritime cooperation on different occasions in 2013. The combination of the two forms of China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a vast and complex global development strategy involving infrastructure development and investments in more than 165 countries. China’s BRI is independent of any US involvement or could be described as a China-led system without America. Between 2017 and 2020, tensions between the US and China increased quickly after Trump took office. In 2019, the entire world was shocked by the news that the Chinese government imprisoned more than one million people in Xinjiang. This chapter reviews the history of Chinese policies towards Xinjiang under different leaderships since 1949 and Xinjiang’s new role and position in BRI strategy and US-China relations.