This timely Research Handbook investigates the radically transformative impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), addressing key questions regarding its economic, political and strategic consequences: What does the Chinese government hope to achieve with the BRI? How have recipient states responded? And what are its potential opportunities and risks?
Bringing together prominent international scholars and analysts, this Research Handbook arrives at a critical time in the infrastructural development of the BRI, shedding light on its influence in the future of global politics and economics. Chapters unpack the role of the BRI in Chinese foreign policy, placing infrastructural development at the centre of regional affairs, great power dynamics and economic and investment trends. Employing geopolitical and diplomatic modes of investigation, it offers critical and holistic views of the progress and challenges of the BRI’s implementation and its implications on the world stage.
Providing an innovative global viewpoint on the BRI, this Research Handbook offers cutting-edge perspectives for scholars and students of political science, particularly those investigating the latest developments in Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Its practical insights and broad empirical analysis will also benefit policymakers and think tank analysts working in the field.
Huiyao Wang, Center for China and Globalization (CCG)
Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative
Description
Table of Contents
Contents:
Preface and acknowledgements xix
Introduction to the Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative xx
Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hong Liu and Gong Xue
PART I CONCEPTUAL AND THEMATIC ISSUES
1 China and the Maritime Silk Road: from passive to active participant 2
John N. Miksic
2 The domestic politics of the Belt and Road Initiative and its implications 14
Baogang He
3 China’s railway diplomacy under the Belt and Road Initiative 28
Shang-su Wu
4 The Belt and Road Initiative’s evolving security dimension 43
Alessandro Arduino
5 Looking into energy security through the lens of the Belt and Road
Initiative: can China achieve a more secure energy future? 54
Lixia Yao
6 China’s global quest for food and the Belt and Road Initiative 65
Hongzhou Zhang
7 BRI and global development praxis: is a paradigm shift eminent? 76
Ana Cristina D. Alves
8 The Digital Silk Road: understanding China’s technological rise and the
implications for global governance 88
Clayton T. Cheney
9 The strategic rationale of China’s Belt and Road Initiative 102
Joseph Chinyong Liow
10 The Belt and Road Initiative as a diplomatic discourse 114
Dylan M.H. Loh
PART II THE MARITIME DOMAIN
11 Soaring Garuda meets rising dragon: the political economy of the Belt
and Road Initiative in Indonesia 123
Guanie Lim and Hong Liu
12 Explaining the Belt and Road in the Philippines: elite consolidation,
construction contracts, and online gambling capital 137
Alvin Camba, Jerik Cruz, Janica Magat and Angela Tritto
13 Malaysia and the Belt and Road Initiative: maritime, rail, and digital
connectivity 150
Chow-Bing Ngeow
14 China’s first cross-border high-speed railway project and Laos’s
relational power 161
Gabriele Giovannini
15 Cambodian perspective on the Belt and Road Initiative 175
Vannarith Chheang and Pheakdey Heng
16 Belt and Road Initiative in Myanmar: adapting to the slippery road 190
Gong Xue
17 The BRI in the new normal of COVID-19: the case of Thailand 202
Zhimin Tang and Orrasa Rattana-amornpirom
18 Singapore in China’s Belt and Road Initiative 214
Sarah Y. Tong and Tuan Yuen Kong
19 Pakistan and the BRI: is there a shift from euphoria to pragmatism? 227
Khuram Iqbal
20 China, Sri Lanka and the BRI 239
Chulanee Attanayake and Yuanzhe Ren
PART III THE OVERLAND BELT
21 China’s Belt and Road in the Pacific: implementation, motives and prospects 253
Denghua Zhang
22 Russia and the overland Belt and Road 264
Ekaterina Koldunova
23 Poland’s relation to the Belt and Road Initiative: political, economic,
infrastructural, and socio-cultural dimensions 274
Patrycja Pendrakowska
24 BRI in Kazakhstan: pursuing economic partnership amidst rising concerns 286
Bhavna Dave
25 Uzbekistan and Central Asia in space–time coordinates of the modern
Silk Road 299
Farkhod Tolipov
26 Tajikistan: China’s security gatekeeper in Central Asia 311
Yau Tsz Yan
27 China’s engagements with Central and Eastern Europe: costs and
benefits in the era of the Belt and Road Initiative 322
Alica Kizeková
28 China in Nepal: on the politics of the Belt and Road Initiative
development in South Asia 331
Galen Murton and Nadine Plachta
29 Southeast Europe in current Chinese foreign economic policy 341
Jens Bastian
PART IV THE OVERLAND BELT
30 The BRI in Africa: change or continuity in China–Africa relations? 353
Linda Calabrese
31 China and the Middle East: venturing into the maelstrom 368
James M. Dorsey
32 Western Europe in the BRI 378
Jing Men
33 The Indo-Pacific as pushback against the BRI 390
Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit
34 ‘Not being absent’: China’s Polar Silk Road and the politics of identity 402
Marc Lanteigne
35 The BRI: fuelling strategic rivalry between China and the United States 414
Mingjiang Li
36 India, BRI and the emerging post-Galwan China outlook 424
Jagannath Panda
37 Conclusion: BRI, COVID-19 and the future 437
Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hong Liu and Gong Xue
Index
Author Description
Edited by Joseph Chinyong Liow, Tan Kah Kee Chair Professor of Comparative and International Politics, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Hong Liu, Tan Lark Sye Chair Professor of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Director, Nanyang Centre for Public Administration, Nanyang Technological University, Gong Xue, Assistant Professor, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore