This piece examines and critiques the massive literature on China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It details how research currently seems stuck on the road to nowhere. In addition, it identifies a number of the potholes that collective research endeavors are hitting such as that they are poorly synchronized. It also stresses that lines of analysis are proliferating rather than optimizing, with studies broadening in thematic coverage, rather than becoming deeper. It points out that BRI participants are regularly related to the role of a bit player in many analyses and research often is disconnected from other literatures. Among other things, this article recommends analysts focus on the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) or Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) in specific regions or countries. It also argues for a research core that focuses on the implementation issue (i.e., the issue of MSRI and SREB project implementation), project effects (i.e., the economic and political costs and benefits of projects), and the translation issue (i.e., the domestic and foreign policy effects of projects) and does work that goes beyond the usual suspects. On a related note, research need to identify, more precisely, participants and projects, undertake causal analysis, and take into account countervailing factors. Furthermore, studies need to make more extensive use of the Chinese foreign policy literature. Moreover, works examining subjects like soft power need to improve variable conceptualization and operationalization and deliver more nuanced analyses. Finally, studies, especially by area specialists, should take the area, not the China, perspective.

/pdf/belt-and-road-initiative-bri-blues-powering-bri-research-2m1oukc1lc.pdf

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Blues: Powering BRI Research Back on Track to Avoid Choppy Seas

As China re-emerges on the world stage as a great power, fuelled by intertwined ethno-nationalism and a sense of manifest destiny with roots on its identity as a civilisational state, it is increasingly seeking to reshape the international liberal order that was put in place by the USled West after the Second World War. Its emergence as a normative power in the field of human rights, prioritising national sovereignty and economic development over notions of universalism and civil and political rights has been noticed, and a growing number of political leaders have started to see the unique brand of Chinese authoritarianism and ‘human rights with Chinese characteristics’ as models to emulate. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in Southeast Asia, a region with deep historical and economic ties with China, where no one has forgotten the time when Beijing was the centre of the world.

“A community of shared destiny” : how China is reshaping human rights in Southeast Asia

This chapter serves as a primer on China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) and the MSRI in Africa as well as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and the introduction to the edited volume. It begins with background on the history, features, and goals of China’s MSRI, noting various contemporary issues surrounding China’s ambitious scheme. It next gives an overview of Africa and MENA countries’ political and economic relations with China from 1949 to the present, partly to supply historical context, but primarily to highlight the diverse international and domestic political and economic forces that have shaped the attitudes and stances of African and MENA states toward China. Subsequently, it examines various aspects of the MSRI in Africa as well as Africa in MENA, detailing the objectives of both China and African and MENA MSRI participants as well as issues associated with the MSRI—e.g., neocolonialism—in these two important regions. It then summarizes some of the key points in the book’s chapters. The final section of the introduction highlights some of the diverse findings of the introduction and the book’s contributions, describes some of the book’s policy and theoretical implications, and suggests some avenues for future research.

China’s MSRI in Africa and the Middle East: Political Economic Realities Continue to Shape Results and Ramifications

Searching for a “China model” along the Belt and Road

This chapter supplies background on China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). It also surveys Southeast Asia (SEA)’s relations with China from the 1950s through the present. Furthermore, it delves into the MSRI in SEA, looking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ “collective” stance towards China’s initiative and trade, COFDI, and contracting patterns associated with the MSRI in SEA. Beyond this, it summarizes the book’s chapters. Lastly, it details the book’s findings and discusses areas for future research. The book shows the MSRI in SEA on a project and macroeconomic level has yet to produce earthshattering results, though there have been positive outcomes. It also demonstrates domestic politics plays a critical role in shaping the extent to which SEA countries embrace and implement the MSRI.

China’s MSRI in Southeast Asia: Dynamism Amidst the Delays, Doubts, and Dilemmas

With the vast, ambitious investment project known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China meant to pull the world closer, making itself the political and economic center of gravity for more than 60 countries within the project’s sweep. But domestic and international opposition to the initiative has mounted in the five years since President Xi Jinping announced its start. Intellectuals within China [1] have expressed concerns about wasteful spending and overstretch. Several governments that were initially enthusiastic about Chinese investment have faced popular backlash to the terms of the loans and the potential for corruption. And the United States has recently joined countries in Europe and the Indo-Asia-Pacific region in an effort to counter the Chinese endeavor with an alternative investment scheme.

Nadège Rolland

Papers

Reports of Belt and Road’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated