The “World-Systems Theory in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

This paper advances a refined reappraisal of World-Systems Theory (WST) through systematic analysis of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), conceptualizing the initiative as a world-systemic force rather than a conventional geopolitical strategy. It argues that “World System 2.0” does not propose a new world order separate from Wallerstein’s modern world-system; instead, it represents a theoretical updating of classical WST that retains the capitalist world-economy framework while reinterpreting how systemic power is exercised through infrastructure, finance, digital platforms, and temporal governance. Empirically, the study demonstrates how BRI projects recalibrate global trade corridors, debt relations, and technological standards, generating network-based hierarchies that reconfigure core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral positions. Using a multi-scalar qualitative methodology, combining policy analysis, institutional mapping, and case studies from South Asia, East Africa, and the Balkans, the paper assesses whether the BRI produces structural transformation or reproduces dependency in new spatial forms. The findings indicate that China’s rise reflects an infrastructure-centered, post-territorial modality of hegemony that reshapes systemic power while preserving the underlying logic of global capitalism.