The Military Drivers of China's Belt and Road Endeavor: Expanding the Global Reach from Land Mess to the Maritime Domains*

Chinese scholars have cordially insisted on the tangible economic benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, their counterparts outside China mostly focus on BRI's revisionist outcome. This dichotomy in the BRI study testifies to a security dilemma embedded in the geostrategic tug-of-war between China and the United States. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) openly postulates a "pushback" of the BRI, which further highlights China's potent vulnerability in BRI expansion along with the critical choke points in both global waterways and through continental masses. As the BRI's military geography overlaps its geostrategic reach, the military factor is relevant. This article holds that it is plausible to assess the likely BRI geostrategic effects with the instruments of international relations theories, such as geopolitics. This article evaluates the BRI's well-being from a military standpoint that reflects the great power rivalry. The BRI's inherent military-security ramifications contribute to the restructuring of the existing geopolitical order across the Eurasian continents. A major security challenge for the BRI is the IPS's security/defense connectivity that may point to a new pattern of coordinated military balancing against China in general and its BRI expansion in particular. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) will be logically tasked to protect the BRI through capability enhancement and overseas presence.