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China's Belt and Road Initiative and External Policy

Selected e-articles

Publisher's note: The US-led, rules-based order enables China to pursue a peaceful international power transition by leveraging the agenda-setting power. The agenda that China proposes is development, and the lever to promote the agenda is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI helps China publicize the development agenda, co-opt the existing US-led system, showcase China’s material success, legitimize its creation of new international institutions, and attract supporters of its calls to revise the current US-led order. Since Washington wants to avoid its competition with China turning apocalyptic, the most sensible US countermeasure is keeping China inside this rules-based order and competing to set its agenda.

Publisher's note: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a well-acknowledged central economic and diplomatic policy of the Chinese government, which was proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013. By using content analysis and interviews, this paper analyzes Chinese President Xi’s speeches from 2013 to 2020 about the BRI, as well as official statements of the Chinese central government. It identifies at least five competing diplomatic narratives of the BRI. Different from repetitive literature that explores either the economic or political implications of the BRI, this paper contributes by exploring the original story that the Chinese government tries to tell the world. It concludes that initially, the narrative of the BRI has not been portrayed well from the Chinese side.

Publisher's note: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to increase connectivity between regions and countries that market forces excluded from the previous wave of economic globalization. Foreign direct investment (FDI) can create the conditions for the economic takeoff of least-developed countries (LDCs) and developing countries. Although Chinese FDI has nearly doubled since the launch of the BRI in 2013 compared to 2005–2013, it does not seem to be directed toward BRI member countries more than the non-member countries. One exception is South American BRI member countries, which have significantly increased their FDI inflows from China. This is not the case, however, for West Asian countries, where FDI growth has been lower for BRI countries than for the West Asian countries as a whole, and especially for sub-Saharan BRI countries, for which the amount of FDI has even decreased compared to the 2005–2013 period. The BRI’s slow start and the countries’ gradual entry may explain the delay in seeing the positive results expected from it reflected in the data.

Abstract by the authors: In this article, we explore the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a case of “Contingent Power Extension” (CPE) towards the European Union (EU), assessing its implications for regional (dis)integration in the latter. CPE is a conceptual prism that interprets the BRI as a polymorphous, dynamic, and context-specific mechanism through which Chinese foreign policy elites intend to convey, amplify, and legitimize the regime’s power-reach into other regions, including the EU. Along two examples—the 14 + 1 Cooperation Forum and the Port of Genoa in Italy—we examine the power dynamics of the BRI by tracing (a) the processual impact of power extension towards the EU and (b) the (un)intended consequences for the EU in terms of (dis)integration. The findings of our analysis provide an insight into the multicausal relations between the BRI and European (dis)integration not as a static outcome but rather as a contested process of struggle. The article concludes by discussing whether and how the EU can strengthen its own institutional foundations and use its systemic leverage to respond to the BRI while enhancing regional integration in the process.

Abstract by the author: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a hallmark of China's global rise. While the BRI has unfolded as a global platform focused on bilateral relations, the Chinese government has also tried to expand links between the BRI and international organizations, notably the United Nations. Available evidence about UN–BRI relations suggests, however, that an initial honeymoon phase with mushrooming projects and public endorsements was followed by a sharp decline in engagement. This article argues that a focus on inter-governor legitimation attempts helps understand the rise and fall of UN–BRI relations. Based on publicly available evidence, internal documentation and stakeholder interviews, it shows how legitimation informed motivations on both sides to invest in UN–BRI relations, and how western opposition subsequently led to UN entities reducing their engagement.(...)

Abstract by the authors: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) attracts many Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) to invest abroad, but China's intention behind this policy has raised heated disputes. Drawing on an institution-based view and theories of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs), we analyze whether the initiative undermines host countries' financial conditions through outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). Using the time-varying Difference-in-Differences model based on Chinese enterprises' investment data from 2009 to 2020, we find the BRI facilitates Chinese OFDI to host countries but with no significant increase in distressed debt. Chinese OFDI eschews heavily indebted countries and shows little relevance to the growth of the BRI countries' non-repayable debt, which contradicts the "debt-trap" argument.

Abstract by the author: China’s transition from a country striving for self-reliance in the 1950s to the world’s dominant power in 2020 is remarkable. The economic and foreign policies it followed during various phases of development helped the country to achieve the targets and goals that it set up for itself. The ambitious Belt and Road Initiative by President Xi Jinping to rebuild old Silk routes and to build new connectivity projects containing road, rail and sea transport corridors include in China’s Grand Strategy. That is to achieve self-sufficiency of up to 70% in advanced technology sectors by 2025 and to reach a preeminent position in the world by 2049. This includes protecting security interests as well as the flow of energy resources required for a steady progress. The article provides an overview of China’s progress and plans from Mao’s regime to Xi Jinping’s presidentship. In the process, it explains China’s changed priorities, interests and how foreign policy also changed according to the changing economic policies.

Publisher's note: China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), labelled as the world's largest infrastructure program, has so far directed investments mainly to energy and transportation networks in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Since its launch, the BRI has changed significantly in terms of scale, stakeholders, and investment sectors and continues to evolve, also in light of the COVID-19 crisis. However, so far, there is no systematic and comprehensive analysis of how it might look like in the medium-term future (2035), even though academic literature on the BRI is burgeoning. We address this research gap and apply a scenario method with a 2 × 2 matrix, building on insights from ∼40 qualitative interviews with representatives from business, non-profit and public sectors from China and BRI countries, complemented by desk research of press and academic articles. We conceptualise the BRI alongside its degree of economic globalisation and multilateralism, which are both impacted by the global pandemic response. We arrive at the four scenarios Asian, Vibrant, Irrelevant, and International BRI. These scenarios show that different development are possible with the BRI's geographical scope, the investment volumes and sectors, the funding structure, and also the orientation towards sustainability. These post-pandemic pathways of the BRI might help decision-makers in business and politics to prepare their responses and strategies. The scenarios can also inform the academic debate around conceptualising the BRI and provide a qualitative basis for future quantitative impact assessments.

Abstract by the authors :China's international hydropower projects have been streamlined as a major focus of the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). These hydropower projects have shown many positive outcomes in promoting the energy infrastructure and local economic development in BRI countries. However, insufficient attention is given to scrutinizing the limitations of Belt and Road hydropower collaboration, hindering the potential for amplifying its beneficial impacts. This study reveals the tendency and distinctiveness of China's development finance, contributing to providing a clearer picture of where and how the massive BRI hydropower cooperation is taking place and what might be the limitations. Our analysis shows that a) China's development finance for the BRI power cooperation was heavily concentrated on the hydropower sector compared to other energy alternatives, thereby creating a promising renewable energy development of BRI. b) BRI hydropower projects are dominated by large dams in specific regions, and c) the predominance of large dams and the geographic concentration should be gradually adjusted to bring BRI hydropower cooperation more social and environmental progress.

Abstract by the author: Upgrading the production capabilities in all countries is a target of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goal 9. Increasing economic complexity, that is, a country's ability to manufacture more sophisticated products and thus moving up the value chain, is a key driver for sustainable economic growth. This paper investigates whether Chinese Belt and Road investments have impacted the economic complexity of host countries — a topic not addressed in the literature to date, using a sequential generalised method of moments model selection approach. The research focuses on the countries whose economic complexities are below that of China. Our empirical results show significant positive effects of Chinese investments on such host countries’ economic complexities. The inflows of Chinese investments have thus supported the upgrading of production capabilities in these countries. This is encouraging, especially for the Global South countries, to intensify their interactions with the Belt and Road initiative.

Abstract by the author: Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are the primary implementers of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This article identifies three trends in Chinese SOEs’ development of overseas infrastructure through the BRI. Specifically, they are diversifying project models, pursuing more small and medium-sized projects, and partnering with new international actors. It also considers the implications of these shifts for Chinese SOEs and host countries.

Abstract by the author: In popular, scholarly, business and governmental conceptualisations, ‘corridors’ are identified as fundamental components of connectivity and central to the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, given how the BRI has challenged socio-spatial relations among participant states, elevating the corridor as the dominant mechanism framing the BRI is incomplete and misleading. Paradoxically, while some evidence on the ground supports the existence of functioning corridors, the BRI is equally characterised by chokepoints – processes that restrict the flow of goods, resources, services and information. Although BRI programmes are widely rendered as networks of connectivity via corridors, the analytics of chokepoints, and the frictions they generate, have not been critically applied to research on the BRI. Identifying and responding to the importance of this gap, we propose a ‘corridor-chokepoint dialectic’ to critically evaluate the operations of BRI development and apply this dialectical concept to multiple BRI-affiliated countries bordering China, including Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar. Each of these countries play host to major corridors projected within widespread BRI agendas and lend both discursive and material support for ‘new Silk Road’ connectivity. However, contrary to state rhetoric and popular media depictions, an array of corridors in conjunction with chokepoints more accurately defines the operational realities and challenges of BRI progress across Asia.

Publisher's note: This study deploys a geoeconomics perspective to explore how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been implemented through economic means by states and firms in China and host countries to achieve strategic objectives. We first use three geoeconomic indicators to classify 74 Belt and Road countries' relations with China and unpack the key geographical features of BRI projects. Then, against this geoeconomics background, we select three BRI projects to explain the roles played by the Chinese state and firms with different ownerships in the BRI's execution. The cases are port development in Sri Lanka by China Merchants Port, a national state-owned enterprise; railway investment and construction in Laos and Thailand led by the Chinese government and state-owned firms; and industrial park development by China Fortune Development, a private developer. We argue that the BRI acts as a geoeconomics maneuver, propelled by a close state-business cooperation that is vital in enabling its success. In forging the BRI, the Chinese state shapes the overall strategic pathway. Nonetheless, it is the firms, both state-owned and private, that are increasingly implicated in co-constructing the project-based and context-specific "frameworks of action" with host countries' governments and business interests to manage overseas economic uncertainty.

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