Beyond Hegemony: Leadership and Followership Formation under the Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America - A Case Study on Chile

In the last two decades, Sino-Latin American relations witnessed a dramatic growth whose leading economic nature progressively expanded into several spheres of interaction, eventually unveiling thriving cooperation opportunities consistent with both China’s interests in the region and the latter’s urgency to capitalise on the momentum provided by China’s global ascent. The phase of strategic transition that the bilateral relations are currently undergoing found its most recent manifestation in the extension of the BRI to the region, which resulted from a co-produced discourse whose practical realisation is still under discussion. Considering that Beijing recognised Latin America as a “natural extension of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road” only in 2017, indeed, the initiative is still in its early stages, and further research is needed to address the paucity of related academic sources in the burgeoning literature on China-Latin America relations. Therefore, the present study is intended to comprehensively assess the BRI in Latin America, ultimately aiming to determine whether the initiative holds the potential to induce considerable changes in the patterns of engagement that have hitherto shaped the relations. The research thus explores two lines of analysis respectively corresponding to the attempt to (a) conceptualise China’s rise and associated shifts in the international system, and (b) confront such theoretical speculations with the Latin American scenario. To this end, the study draws from critical streams of international relations theorising – particularly neo-Gramscian and post-hegemony theories directed at the follower, rather than solely at the leader – to interpret the essence and implications of China’s rise. Hence, it gives a succinct overview of the history, as well as the regional and sub-regional articulations of China-Latin American relations that set the stage for the effective expansion of the BRI. Moving from such observations, the research then delves into the evolution of Latin America’s status in the BRI, including China’s motives in engaging the region, and the drivers that tout the support offered by BRI Latin American countries, alongside those that by contrast act as a deterrent to joining amongst non-BRI countries. By detailing the dynamics of leadership and followership formation in Chile, the study confirms that the likelihood of the BRI to act as a game changer in Latin America is scarce, for its transformational potential is substantially dependent upon enduring schemes of cooperation that, as a matter of fact, preliminarily enable the BRI’s projection in the region. All things considered, the research finally argues that the inclusion of material and ideational incentives within China’s leadership project increases the incipient follower’s capacity to legitimate its BRI membership by (a) formulating a discourse that reinforces its ontological security and self-representation vis-à-vis China, and (b) anticipates advantageous perspectives of material change. As such, in Latin America, the BRI can (a) enhance existing material commitments and (b) offer a systematic framework for China to engage the region by incorporating potential supporters’ beliefs and expectations around the initiative, prospectively generating followership from a type of benign leadership devoid of the dominant, unilateral aspect typical of a hegemonic demeanour.