The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is undoubtedly the most high-profile global initiative launched by China today, aiming to promote connectivity and strengthen partnerships and mutually beneficial cooperation among countries along the routes. With the increasing international attention to environmental issues, China is also willing to take more responsibility within its capacity and has consciously promoted the BRI concept of green development in recent years. The debut of BRI was originated from a public speech by President Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan in 2013, as the initiator of the Belt and Road Initiative, and his speech also played an important role in guiding the advancement of the BRI. This paper aims to explore and analyze the connotations, discourse changes, focus and potential interaction with the international agenda such as SDGs regarding BRI green development, through content analysis by using President Xi's public speeches during 2013 -2021 as corpus. This paper finds that the concept of green development gradually occupies a more important weight in President Xi's speeches regarding the BRI. At the same time, the conceptual construction of green development has shifted from a more scattered and specific description to a position of deeper roots as one of the foundational guidance for the BRI as a whole. In his presentation, the topic of climate, industry and energy and infrastructure aspects have received higher attention while talking about BRI green development. In terms of regions, Central and West Asia, Central Europe, and Southeast Asia received relative more attention, showing a trend of from near to far and focusing on developing countries. Lastly, there is potential for synergy between BRI's green development and global agenda such as SDGs, however, social aspects are less prominent than economic or environmental aspects.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-528773 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Chen, Kaixin |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Examensarbete vid Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 1650-6553 ; 2024/01 |
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