Introduction to the Special Issue—China’s Belt and Road Initiative: the View from East Asia (original) (raw)
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China's Belt and Road Initiative: The View from East Asia
East Asia, 2019
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formerly known as One Belt One Road (OBOR), has emerged as one of the top priorities for Chinese President Xi Jinping ever since he unveiled the initiative in 2013. This special issue surveys the reception of BRI in East Asia. As China's immediate neighborhood, this region will play an important role in determining whether Beijing's signature project will succeed in the mid-to long term. However, research has thus far mostly focused on BRI's reception in Central Asia and (Eastern) Europe. In this introduction, we first provide an overview of the literature by identifying three main strands of interpretation on BRI, namely those focusing on geoeconomics, on geopolitics, and on international norms as well as order. Next, we provide a review of the contemporary research on both Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian perceptions of and policy responses to BRI. Finally, we discuss research gaps in the literature and provide an overview of case studies and findings in this special issue. We conclude by identifying recurring themes and characteristics in East Asian responses to BRI.
China's Belt and Road Initiative through the lens of Central Asia
Routledge, 2019
Has the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013, changed the perception of China among local actors in Central Asia? There are numerous internal problems and contradictions among the Central Asian countries and the region remains one of the least integrated in the world. This poses serious challenges to BRI but also offers opportunities for enhancing regional connectivity and integration. Although there has been some research and even more media coverage of BRI, little is known about how Central Asians perceive BRI. This chapter fills some of these gaps and analyzes the present state of relations between the Central Asian countries and China and collects and systematizes perceptions of Beijing and BRI among Central Asian stakeholders. The analysis focuses on economic cooperation, infrastructure and educational initiatives, as they as they are among BRI's main pillars. The main conclusion is that current attitudes towards China have been formed within the framework of bilateral relations that started in 1991, and there has so far been no major shift in the perception of China in Central Asia since BRI was launched. Whereas the broader public expects more economic opportunities from BRI and there has been more discussion of China's role in Central Asia after 2013, local communities remain uninformed and weakly connected to the high-level interaction between the Chinese and Central Asian governments.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Global Politics and Implications
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global infrastructure development project that ambitiously aims to connect Asia with European and African continents through land and sea corridors. China adopted this gigantic game-changing master plan in 2013 and spurred much speculation among scholars and policymakers worldwide. This article investigates the development of the project through the lens of global political geography and economy. From an international relations perspective, the author consults relevant pieces of literature and focuses on the international issues and events concerning the development of the project using concepts of ideas, interests, and institutions within the scope of geopolitics and political economy. The analysis is performed by reviewing critical events and arguments related to the ideas, interests and institutions evolving around the implementation of BRI. Drawing from the analysis, the author argues that the rise of China as a dominant global superpower largely depends on the success of the BRI, and this initiative will continue to generate politics among the international actors, multinational entities, and institutions. Despite widespread speculations, the project poses a substantive threat to the USA's global dominance and is likely to create more global development cooperation under Chinese leadership and vision.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative Revisited: Challenges and Ways Forward
China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies
Compared with other Chinese-proposed multilateral institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not yet fully institutionalized. Still, it has been enthusiastically welcomed by many Asian and African countries, though less so by Western ones, Japan, and Russia. This is not only because of the expected economic benefits being Asian- and African-centric, but perhaps more importantly, because of the BRI having potential to be an exceptional Eastern model that may become universal. Up to the recent times, the flow of religions, doctrines, ideas and ideologies has mainly been from the West to the East, often accompanied by Western colonialism. Now, if the BRI is successfully implemented, for the first time in history a model of Eastern origin may affect the West and the rest of world. Unlike national liberation movements which had achieved political but not economic independence,...
International Political Economy Studies, 2020
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is basically a global project and thus the existing literature has explored it broadly. This article seeks to explore the literature especially those focused on the BRI’s effects in Western Asia. This literature has tried to explain it by employing international relations and political economy theories. By dividing this literature into four categories of realist, liberalist, constructivist, and Marxist, this article argues that despite the importance of the analysis of BRI in Western Asia by the existing literature, they are often based on predictions without enough objective data and are also reductionist. In a way that some have approached it via power politics (realism), some others through politics of wealth (liberalism), some via identity politics (constructivism), and finally some through the class politics (Marxism). By comparing the existing approaches, this article argues that Keohane and Nye’s theory of international regimes, which is not being used in any existing theory about Belt and Road Initiative in Western Asia, provides a better theoretical framework for analyzing the BRI in Western Asia, because it takes into consideration some important factors such as developments in technological field, the growth rate of gross domestic product, and the governments’ objectives in pursuing economic policies and it fits better the objective data and realities of contemporary Western Asia.
Global Perspectives on China's Belt and Road Initiative
2021
The year 2013 saw the launch of the largest, most influential investment initiative in recent memory: China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This globe-spanning strategy has reshaped local economies and regional networks, and it has become a contested subject for scholars and practitioners alike. How should we make sense of the complex interactions that the BRI has enabled? Understanding these processes requires truly global perspectives alongside careful attention to the role that local actors play in giving shape to individual BRI projects. The contributions in Global Perspectives on China's Belt and Road Initiative: Asserting Agency through Regional Connectivity provide both 'big picture' assessments of China's role in regional and global interactions and detailed case studies that home in on the role agency plays in BRI dynamics. Written by leading area studies scholars with diverse disciplinary expertise, this book reveals how Chinese efforts to recalibrate...
China's Belt and Road Vision: Geoeconomics and Geopolitics
China's Belt and Road Vision: Geoeconomics and Geopolitics, 2020
China's OBOR/BRI has triggered an explosion of vitriolic critique, especially among members of the 'Quad' grouping, and their allies, partners and protectees. And yet, over a hundred states as well as multilateral institutions like the UN and the World Bank have signed up partnership agreements. The World Economic Forum, arguably the finest reflection of international capital, has waxed lyrical about the BRI's benefits. So, what divides the champions and the detractors?
Belt and Road Initiatives (BRIs): Understanding China’s Intentions Behind It
European Journal of Law and Political Science
BRI is regarded as the most aspiring foreign and economic policy initiative of President Xi’s legacy. At the same time, Beijing has the overarching objective to achieve its geopolitical goals by economically binding China’s neighbouring countries through this initiative. Some Scholars are cynical regarding the success of BRI as planned by President Xi’s administration, urging caution for both China and the countries involved. President Xi’s exceptional overt emphasis on protecting China’s national interests that transpired into their newly formed foreign policy approaches has demonstrated that China’s commitment to peaceful development is not without conditions. China’s commitment to a peaceful rise will also be further conditioned by the many externalities, namely international and regional interest, domestic priorities, security dilemmas, power conflict, and conflicting core national interests from participating members, which in turn can be reciprocated with antagonistic strategi...
China's Belt and Road Initiative: at the crossroads of challenges and ambitions
Pacific Review, 2018
Interpretations of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) mostly agree that it is a policy opening that offers some remedies for China's economic and security challenges, as well as reflects China's increasing regional and global ambitions. This paper argues that the multiple drivers characterizing the BRI result from the multiple identities of China as a developing country struggling with several sources of instability and macroeconomic problems and, simultaneously, a regional and an emerging power, and finally a major global power with the significant economic capacity to shape the global economic order. The paper aims to substantiate the entanglement of the defensive and ambitious motivations behind the BRI by examining the background against which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership has suggested it. In so doing, it draws on Chinese official policy documents and statistics, speeches from Chinese leaders, and existing social-scientific research on the transformation of China's economic and political landscape in recent years.
Belt and Road Initiative: Geopolitical Implications for Global Order
Asia Pacific (Jamshoro), 2022
This study contributes to our understanding about Chinese security policy by providing insights into geopolitical upheavals caused by China's expanding global presence. This article discusses structural problems and geopolitical challenges brought on by the Chinese Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Paper claims that BRI may be legitimately understood as being more than merely a system of economic and military security. By promoting domestic stability and influencing countries outside of Asia, BRI really assists Chinese leaders in bridging internal and external challenges. The responsibility for helping to create a peaceful future still primarily rests with the West.