Visa Policies: The Belt and Road Initiative and Status-Seeking

Abstract

How do visa policies function as infrastructural mechanisms within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework?
This question investigates how mobility policies facilitate controlled labour flows and urban development to reconfigure
global power centres. While China leverages visa policies to gain status and redirect economic activity, it remains subject to
Western mobility regimes. Cases such as Sino-Serbian relations illustrate how Western-imposed mobility domination persist
even as China ascends in global influence, and China is seeking strategic destination replacement to shift power away from
the West. The Chinese government strategically facilitates visa liberalization agreements to promote cultural exchange,
economic interdependence, and geopolitical alignment with participating countries. This paper argues that visa policies can
be used as an important infrastructural tool to reshape global orders in the BRI to increase China’s international
status. China’s pursuit of favourable visa policies within BRI states is a deliberate status-seeking strategy. By situating visa
policies within the broader discourse on migration infrastructure and global mobility divides, this study contributes to
understanding how states employ non-material infrastructural tools to advance strategic objectives. Through an
interdisciplinary lens that incorporates political science, migration studies, and international relations, this research
underscores the significance of visa diplomacy in shaping the evolving global landscape under the BRI. This paper is structured
as follows. Existing scholarship on migration infrastructure, global mobility divides, and China’s visa diplomacy within the BRI
framework is examined, and it identifies visa policies as a key yet overlooked aspect of international status-seeking. I seek to
tackle this issue using the socio-psychology framework of Social Identity Theory with modifications: Firstly, China seeks
favourable visa policies to increase its citizens’ comparative status within its sphere of influence to project state social
mobility and social creativity. Secondly, the concept of destination replacement is introduced with the case study of Serbia,
where BRI is a strategic instrument for China to enhance its reputation by countering the influence of Western states. The
paper concludes with a brief discussion on the motivation of BRI participants to engage with both unilateral and bilateral
Chinese visa diplomacies and calls for more future research on visa diplomacy and global order-building within specific
frameworks of regional geopolitics.