CHINA¿S BELT AND ROAD `POLITICAL IMPACTS¿ IN THE INTERNATIONAL SPHERE(2013¿2023): HOW TO CONCEPTUALISE, ANALYSE AND EVALUATE THEM?

Extensive scholarship has examined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its implementation in participating states. However, less attention has been paid to detecting its political impacts. This study conceptualises impact as a dual concept encompassing both influence and effects. Based on this conceptualisation, it investigates whether China has been successful in altering or strengthening participating states' positions toward two of its most vital strategic priorities—Taiwan and Xinjiang—since a given country’s adhesion to BRI. Additionally, the research examines BRI's results in terms of political trust, policy coordination, political mechanisms, and Communist Party of China (CPC)-foreign party relations. Employing qualitative methodologies, adopting the canons of both discourse and content anaysis, this study examines a comprehensive corpus of official documents, political elite statements, and media coverage. By scrutinising the cases of Kyrgyzstan, Djibouti, and Italy, this research provides a more nuanced understanding of China's capacity to exert political influence on BRI participating countries and identifies BRI's main achievements in the political domain.