Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-6wzj7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-08T07:25:11.858Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FRAGMENTED MOTIVES AND POLICIES: THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE IN CHINA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2021

Min Ye
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Observers have portrayed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) variously, as China's great-power strategy, global infrastructure initiative, or commercial projects. Each characterization has had logical reasoning and evidence to support it. But how? How has one initiative been shown to have such varied motives? This article unpacks the Chinese state and establishes that a “tri-block” structure consisting of political leadership, bureaucracy, and economic arms has accounted for such varied motivations and actors in the BRI in China. In the BRI process, the leadership employed strategic rhetoric, and bureaucracies imposed policy ideas. Yet, more pervasively, the implementers have followed commercial motives in specific projects. BRI's strategic rhetoric and hazardous investment have generated external critiques and anti-China backlash, forcing Beijing to readjust the initiative. However, given the tri-block state structure, Beijing's policy adjustment will not be sufficient. Economic actors’ incentives need to be shifted too.

Keywords

ChinaBelt and Roadtri-block statepolicy cycleXi Jinpingfragmentationfeedback
Type
Article
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , July 2021 , pp. 193 - 217
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the East Asia Institute

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Acharya, Amitav. 2020. “Four Factors That Could Shape Southeast Asia in the Coming Decade,” Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 498, January 29. www.eastwestcenter.org/system/tdf/private/apb498.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=37 404. Accessed July 8, 2020.Google Scholar
Ang, Yuen Yuen. 2016. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchette, Jude. 2021. “Confronting the Challenge of Chinese State Capitalism.” CSIS Global Forecast 2021, June 22. www.csis.org/analysis/confronting-challenge-chinese-state-capitalism. Accessed January 22, 2021.Google Scholar
Chen, Ling. 2018. Manipulating Globalization: Local Business and Bureaucracy in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Yao. 2015. “The Core Connotation and Advancing Ideas of the BRI Strategy.” China Development Watch, No. 1: 53–55.Google Scholar
Chin, Gregory, and Gallagher, Kevin. 2019. “Coordinated Credit Spaces: The Globalization of Chinese Development Finance.” Development and Change 50.1: 245–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Erica. 2016. “Whatever Became of China, Inc.?” In Investment Abroad: The Dragon Steps Out, Washington DC: Brookings Institution. www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/china-inc-erica-downs.pdf. Accessed July 19, 2020.Google Scholar
Downs, Erica. 2019. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Power Projects: Insights Into Environmental and Debt Sustainability. Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy. https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/pictures/China-Pakistan_CGEP_Report_100219-2.pdf. Accessed July 19, 2020.Google Scholar
Economy, Elizabeth. 2018. The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Erie, Matthew. 2020. “BRI vs. Covid-19.” China, Law and Development Research Brief, No. 5. https://cld.web.ox.ac.uk/file/590881. Accessed July 8, 2020.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan. 2018. Developmental States. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Liping, and Wang, Chan, 2016. “Zhongguo gangtie zouchuqu: baogang xiangrang chukouliang de 10% zou tade dianshang pingtai” [China Steel Goes Global: Baosteel Plans to Export 10% on its E-commerce Platform]. The Paper, March 31. www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1451020. Accessed August 10, 2020.Google Scholar
Heilmann, Sebastian. 2018. Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy-Making Facilitated China's Rise. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillman, Jonathan. 2020. The Emperor's New Road: China and the Project of the Century. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoslag, Jonathan. 2019. The Silk Road Trap: How China's Trade Ambitions Challenge Europe. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Jin, Zhongxia. 2012. “China's “Marshall Plan”-Discussion on China's Foreign Infrastructure Investment Strategy.” International Economy Forum 6: 57–65.Google Scholar
Jones, Lee, Zeng, Jinghan. 2019. “Understanding China's ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: Beyond ‘Grand Strategy’ to a State Transformation Analysis.” Third World Quarterly 40.8: 1415–1439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kong, Xiangwu, Tian, Feng, Zhang, Mengxu. 2014. “Yidai yilu fuxing chengshi rongguang” [One Belt and One Road Revives the Cities in Asia]. People's Daily. July 4. http://finance.people.com.cn/n/2014/0703/c1004-25231455.html. Accessed July 17, 2020.Google Scholar
Lampton, David. 2014. Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lampton, David, Ho, Selina, and Kuik, Cheng-Chwee. 2020. Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Lardy, Nicholas. 2019. The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China. Washington DC: PIIE.Google Scholar
Li, Guohui. 2016. “Jinqi tan jinrong ruhe zhichi yidai yilu jianshe” [Jin Qi speaks on financial support of one belt one road]. Jingrong shibao [Financial Times], May 23. www.sohu.com/a/76649584_114984. Accessed July 18, 2020.Google Scholar
Li, Mingjiang. 2020. “The Belt and Road Initiative: Geo-economics and Indo-Pacific Security Competition.” International Affairs 96.1: 169–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Xiangyang. 2014. “Lun haishang sichou zhilu de duoyuanghua hezuo jizhi.” [On multilateral cooperation mechanism in the maritime silk road] Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi 11 (November): 2–17.Google Scholar
Lieberthal, Kenneth G., and Lampton, David M., eds. 1992. Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lin, Hao, 2016. “Zhongguo zhongtie touzi liangyi meiyuan zai malaixiya jian quyu zhongbu” [China Railways Plans to Establish a Regional Headquarters in Malaysia]. The Paper, March 22. www.sohu.com/a/64841444_115402. Accessed July 18, 2020.Google Scholar
Liu, Hong, and Lim, Guanie, 2018. “The Political Economy of a Rising China in Southeast Asia: Malaysia's Response to the Belt and Road Initiative.” Journal of Contemporary China 28.116: 216–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Jianchao. 2014. “Yidai yilu jianshe shi yazhou guojia de gongtong shiye” [The belt and road is the common project of Asian nations]. Guangming Daily, May 28, 8.Google Scholar
Liu, Weidong. 2014. “Governance, Politics and Culture.” In The Geographical Transformation of China, ed. Dunford, Michael and Liu, Weidong. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McGregor, Richard. 2010. The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Mertha, Andrew. 2009. “Fragmented Authoritarianism 2.2: Political Pluralization in the Chinese Policy Process.” The China Quarterly 200: 995–1012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Tom. 2017. China's Asian Dream. London: Zed.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minzner, Carl. 2018. End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining its Rise. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Naughton, Barry. 2020. “Grand Steerage.” In Fateful Decisions: Choices That will Shape China's Future, ed. Fingar, Thomas and Oi, Jean. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Naughton, Barry, and Tsai, Kellee. 2015. State Capitalism, Institutional Adaptation, and the Chinese Miracle. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NDRC. 2015. “Fagaiqei: woguo zhengzai zhiding guoji channeng hezuo sannian xingdong jiihua” [NDRC: We Are Making International Capacity Cooperation Three Year Action Plan]. Zhongguo jingji wang [China Economics Network], December 25.Google Scholar
Norris, William J., 2016. Chinese Economic Statecraft: Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Oi, Jean C., 2020. “Future of Central-Local Relations.” In Fateful Decisions: Choices that Will Shape China's Future, ed. Fingar, Thomas and Oi, Jean. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pearson, Margaret, Rithmire, Meg, and Tsai, Kellee. 2020. “Party-State Capitalism in China.” Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School, December 8. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/party-state-capitalism-in-china. Accessed December 21, 2020.Google Scholar
Pei, Minxin. 2019. “Will China Let Belt and Road Die Quietly?” Nikkei Asia, February 15. https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Will-China-let-Belt-and-Road-die-quietly. Accessed August 21, 2020.Google Scholar
Pence, Mike. 2018. “Remarks by Vice President Pence on the Administration's Policy Toward China.” Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, October 4. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-administrations-policy-toward-china/. Accessed August 13, 2021.Google Scholar
Rithmire, Meg, and Li, Yinhao. 2019. “Chinese Infrastructure Investments in Sri Lanka: A Pearl or a Teardrop on the Belt and Road?” Harvard Business School, Case Study #9-719-046.Google Scholar
Roth, Kenneth. 2019. “China's Global Threat to Human Rights.” Human Rights Watch. www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/china-global-threat-to-human-rights. Accessed July 21, 2020.Google Scholar
Russel, Daniel R., and Berger, Blake. 2019. Navigating the Belt and Road Initiative. New York: Asia Policy Society Institute.Google Scholar
Russel, Daniel and Berger, Blake. 2020. “Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative.” Asia Society Policy Institute. https://asiasociety.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Weaponizing%20the%20Belt%20and%20Road%20Initiative_0.pdf. Accessed October 1, 2020.Google Scholar
Schuman, Michael. 2021. “The Undoing of China's Economic Miracle.” The Atlantic, January 11. www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/01/xi-jinping-china-economy-jack-ma/617552/. Accessed January 21, 2021.Google Scholar
State Council. 2002. “Guanyu guance luoshi guowuyuan guanyu guli qiye liyong yuanwai youhui daikuan he yuanwai hezi hezuo xiangmu jijin kaizhan jingwai dailiao jiagong zhuanpei yewu yijian” [Implement the State Council Opinion on Companies Using Foreign Aid Concessionary Loans to Expand Manufacturing Assembly Business]. State Council Circular #17. www.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticle/b/e/200207/20020700032507.html. Accessed January 21, 2021.Google Scholar
Swaine, Michael. 2014. “Chinese Views and Commentary on Periphery Diplomacy.” China Leadership Monitor 44: 1–43.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Defense. 2019. A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision. www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Free-and-Open-Indo-Pacific-4Nov2019.pdf. Accessed July 19, 2020.Google Scholar
Wang, Jisi. 2011. “China's Search for a Grand Strategy: A Rising Great Power Finds its Way.” Foreign Affairs 90.2: 68–79.Google Scholar
Wang, Yiwei. 2020. “Yidai yilu shi zhongguo de zhuchang quanqiuhua” [One Belt and One Road is China-Hosted Globalization]. Zhongguo Yidai Yilu Wang, November 23. www.sohu.com/a/433805323_731021. Accessed December 2, 2020.Google Scholar
White, Lynn. 1998. Unstately Power: Local Causes of China's Intellectual, Legal, and Governmental Reforms. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Yang, Mei, Guo, Fang, and Yao, Dongqing. 2014. “Xin silu zhanlue de jingji zhidian” [The Economic Anchor of the New Silk Road], Zhongguo jingji zhoukan [China Economics Weekly], July 7. www.rmzxb.com.cn/c/2014-07-11/350302.shtml. Accessed December 2, 2020.Google Scholar
Ye, Min. 2014. Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ye, Min. 2015. “Competing Cooperation in the Asia Pacific: TPP, RCEP, and the New Silk Road.” Asian Security 11.3: 206–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ye, Min. 2019. “Fragmentation and Mobilization: Domestic Politics of China's Belt and Road Initiative.” Journal of Contemporary China 28, issue 119: 696–711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ye, Min. 2020. The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China 1998–2018. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ye, Min. 2021a. “Adapting or Atrophying: China's Belt and Road after Covid-Pandemic.” Asia Policy 16.1: 65–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ye, Min. 2021b. “The COVID Effect: Narratives and Realities in U.S-China Relations.” The Washington Quarterly 44.1: 89–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeng, Ka and Li, Xiaojun. 2019. “To Join or Not to Join? State Ownership, Commercial Interests, and China's Belt and Road Initiative.” Pacific Affairs 92.1: 5–26.Google Scholar
Zhang, Youyi. 2020. “Third-Party Market Cooperation Under the Belt and Road Initiative: Progress, Challenges, and Recommendations.” China International Strategy Review 1.2: 310–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Caihua. 2013. “East Asia Infrastructure Development Mutual Connectivity Finance” [Dongya jichu jianshe hutong hulian rongzi]. International Economic Cooperation 10: 24–29.Google Scholar