https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120940938 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 1–18 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1369148120940938 journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi The Railroad Economic Belt: Grand strategy, economic statecraft, and a new type of international relations Karl Yan Abstract China’s grand strategy is evolving towards greater activism under Xi Jinping – from ‘keeping a low profile’ to ‘striving for achievement’. New initiatives such as forging ‘a new type of international relations’, ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’, and the Belt and Road Initiative have become marked features of the ‘Xi-change’ in China’s grand strategy. From an economic statecraft perspective, this article hypothesises that the Xi-change led to a power centralisation in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Railroad Economic Belt. To support its geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives, the Chinese state has replicated the domestic state- industrial complex. In the context of the Jakarta–Bandung High-speed Rail Corridor, the domestic roles of the National Development and Reform Commission and the China Railway Corporation have been internationalised to ensure the globalisation of China’s high-speed rail industry could be conducted in a concerted and choreographed fashion. Keywords a new type of international relations, Belt and Road Initiative, China, economic statecraft, high- speed rail export Introduction The call for a healthy external environment has been the objective of Chinese foreign policy since the 1970s. While Chinese leaders in the past had been committed to ‘keeping a low profile’ (韬光养晦 in Chinese), the Xi Jinping-led Party-state adopted a new grand strategy of ‘striving for achievement’ (奋发有为in Chinese). This Xi-change called for the building of a ‘new type of international relations’ (新型国际关系 in Chinese) and ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’ (人类命运共同体 in Chinese). In Xi’s report to the 19th National Party Congress, those two foreign policy goals were enshrined as the historical missions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the same speech, Xi Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Corresponding author: Karl Yan, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. Email: karl.yan@mail.utoronto.ca 940938BPI 0 0 10.1177/1369148120940938The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsYan research-article 2020 Special Issue Article