The ‘Great Game’ Redux? China and Development Heterodoxy in a Multi-polar World 2013–2023

Abstract In the 10 years between late 2013 and late 2023, China’s approach to international development evolved at pace and, by 2023, China asserted a leading role in the framing and delivery of international cooperation to support transformational change in the Global South. This article explains the basis for, and unpacks, China’s assertion, and the contribution it makes to evolving development heterodoxy. Adopting a constructivist approach and focusing on a conceptual trinity of institutions, infrastructure and influence, it explores the following: (1) new multilateral institutions and the expanded BRICS alliance; (2) The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); and (3) China’s Global Community of Shared Future (GCSF) & Global Development Initiative (GDI) policies. China, with allies, it concludes, is engaged in a ‘great game’ in which it simultaneously cooperates and competes with Western interests that have traditionally dominated the development enterprise, fuelling development heterodoxy, and reframing development discourse to the benefit, primarily, of countries in the global South.