One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, Xi Jinping's signature project, advances a particular vision of Chinese development. It appears that great power relations are no longer Beijing's foreign policy priority, as neighbourhood diplomacy and regional integration takes a more central stage. The discourses of reviving the classic Silk Road trade routes and constructing new economic corridors are accompanied by the notion of building 'a community of common destiny.'
The phrase itself was coined by Hu Jintao who has applied this term to international relations of China and Taiwan, but since, the notion has evolved to imply Chinese special relations with other states. President Xi Jinping used the notion of a 'community of common destiny' as one of the pillars of modern Chinese diplomacy and as a framework to build OBOR upon. The idea of a community of common destiny amalgamates a variety of Chinese foreign policy postulates and principles towards its neighbours.
In particular, it envisages China as an important global and regional player, which cannot develop in an isolation from the rest of the region, but in a similar vein the development of which is instrumental to the prosperity of all Chinese neighbours. In this regard, as stressed by Xi Jingping, by building a community of common destiny, Beijing will advance neighboring diplomacy, promote an environment conducive to China's development, and enable neighbouring states to benefit from Beijing-led regional integration.
Yet, despite the benevolent ambitions of this initiative, the question remains open to what extent a community of common destiny is an attainable goal or rather a utopian objective. China shares border with 14 states, including Russia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam, India, Nepal and North Korea. Its immediate neighbours are so different, different in geographic size, economic development, socio-political cohesion and degree of influence in the international arena. Can China become that locomotive, which will reconcile the differences and unify all states towards economic development?
In a similar vein, can the idea of a community of common destiny unify Central Asian states to seek a closer integration? At a first glance, it may appear that Central Asia is a fertile ground to build the vision of common destiny upon. Indeed, being a part of a Soviet monolith for 75 years, five Central Asian states have many commonalities. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan share common historic legacy and certain religious, cultural and social affinities. After the demise of the Soviet Union, they all struggled with political and economic reforms in an attempt to introduce Western models of development and fight poverty and economic underdevelopment.
In reality, however, it will be misleading to view Central Asia as a unified region. The unified position of the USSR has been long replaced by sharply divergent economic interests and security arrangements, corresponding to different strategic views of the Central Asian leadership on development; although many international actors and donors continue viewing Central Asia mechanistically as a unified region and thus prescribing similar development solutions to these states.
Accordingly, will Beijing be able to foster a sense of community of common destiny across Central Asia? On one hand, this concept aims to introduce China's domestic and foreign policy goals to the outer world and integrate 'the Chinese dream' with 'the dreams' of the neighbouring states. Yet, at this stage it remains unclear how this noble, but ambiguous concept will soothe ethnic divisions, resolve border disputes, mitigate political differences or introduce win-win economic changes in Central Asia.
Of course, the discourse of common destiny will be accompanied by multi-million dollar economic projects as part of the Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road initiatives. As Moody's predicted, such projects will significantly benefit smaller states with low per-capita incomes, low investment rates and underdeveloped infrastructure. However, a community of common destiny as an idea should rather precede material interventions and appeal to the audience by the power of its values and norms. Will such measures as OBOR make the community of common destiny emerge? Will such different countries as Kazakhstan and Nepal find points of intersection under the aegis of common development? Will bigger states like China and Russia treat smaller states like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as equals? The history is yet to see.
