To understand China's foreign policy in the current era, one must look into the emphasis placed by its current leadership on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While current interpretations about the policy rationale for the initiative tend to focus on the logic of economic statecraft, this paper takes a different approach as it emphasizes identity manifested through discourse as its unit of analysis. In this way, the BRI is seen as part of a longstanding discursive agenda to present a positive and distinct major power identity for China relative to traditional major powers. The paper refers to social identity theory (SIT) as its theoretical framework to present how identity figures in China's foreign policy logic. Consistent with this framework, China's identity-building project is fulfilled through the socio-cognitive processes of categorization and self-enhancement, which in turn are represented in specific discourses constituting the BRI. More specifically, China adopts a discourse of shared legacy and popular support of the BRI to categorize between a perceived in-group and out-group. China also adopts the Silk Road Spirit discourse to present itself as a major power upholding morally acceptable norms in conducting international relations. These discourses of the BRI allow China to enhance its image relative to an out-group of traditional major powers. Referential and argumentation discursive strategies were uncovered to account for the discourses of the BRI constructed by China within official foreign policy documents. By way of conclusion, policy and research insights are drawn from the analysis presented.