Is Chinese Investment Driving Authoritarianism? Evidence from the First Decade of the Belt and Road in Southeast Asia

China's Belt and Road Initiative and Its Implications for Southeast Asia Hong Yu (bio) During state visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013, Xi Jinping announced the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the sea-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, respectively. Shortly after that, these two initiatives were combined to form one unified concept, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This grand initiative, comprising various routes by sea and land, is intended to connect China with Southeast and South Asia, Central Asia, Pacific Oceania, Africa, and Europe. BRI is centered on both soft and hard infrastructure connectivity, aiming to forge an integrated and extensive network of regional infrastructure with China at its hub. BRI has gradually emerged as a top Chinese national strategy. Given China's emergence as a global power through industrial redeployment and outward investment, this initiative could reshape the geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape of Asia and beyond. BRI signals a shift in China's foreign policy and a departure from its long-held low-profile approach. Since Xi came to power in 2012, the Chinese government has adopted a far more proactive foreign policy stance, driven by global thinking.1 BRI serves as the key driver to advance China's interests overseas and demonstrates China's growing confidence and aspirations to be a rule-shaper in the economic governance of the region and beyond. Meanwhile, the demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), following the withdrawal of the United States, offers China further leeway to promote its New Silk Road agenda. The TPP's failure will increase the international momentum behind BRI to accelerate regional economic cooperation and integration through forging infrastructure, trade, and investment linkages. For the Southeast Asian countries, regional economic integration plays a very important role in mitigating external uncertainties and global economic vulnerabilities. The collapse of the TPP hit certain participating countries within Southeast Asia very hard, particularly Singapore. Being a tiny nation without an economic hinterland, Singapore has developed as the [End Page 117] most open and trade-dependent economy in the region. China's realization of BRI depends on the support and participation of other countries; in particular, the neighboring Southeast Asian countries are vital to the success of this grand initiative. The Southeast Asian countries, particularly developing countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, have largely welcomed BRI, which aims to promote close regional trade and investment linkage based on the improvement of interregional physical connectivity. Southeast Asia needs to focus consistently on constructing infrastructure in order to unleash the region's economic growth potential. The Southeast Asian countries consider that participating in BRI will help address their serious infrastructure deficits and accelerate industrial and economic growth. China has offered much-needed investment for connectivity-related infrastructure construction.2 This essay will first examine the opportunities for Southeast Asian countries to participate in BRI and then consider their perspectives on the challenges for the initiative. Opportunities for Southeast Asia Arising from BRI China's rise to become the world's second-largest economy and the largest trading nation has exerted a very powerful pull on the Southeast Asian economies. China has become the largest trading partner for all Southeast Asian countries except for the Philippines. The region, for its part, has benefited enormously from China's economic growth. It has taken advantage of the Sinocentric regional production network created since China's admission to the World Trade Organization in the early 2000s to export raw materials, intermediate goods, and mineral resources to China for final manufacturing into industrial goods before their export to the major consumption markets in the West. Setting aside for the moment the underlying geostrategic and geopolitical considerations, the potential benefits from BRI for Southeast Asia could be enormous. China has committed enormous financial resources to build a number of large-scale transportation projects aiming to improve interregional connectivity. For example, construction has already started on the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway in Indonesia and on a railway linking Mohan, on the Chinese border, with Vientiane, the capital of Laos. These two projects, both largely financed by Chinese banks and being [End Page 118] built by Chinese companies, mark Beijing's efforts to...

China has been actively integrating itself in the global economy through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and increasing trade flows. In order to further expand its foreign market ambition and reinforce itself as a leader in the world economic system, China unleashed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). One of the main economic incentives behind this initiative is to strengthen China’s integration with Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets. In recent years, an emerging trend for Chinese investors to invest in CEE countries such as Poland can be observed. The aim of this research is to analyze the changing patterns and motives of Chinese Outbound FDI (OFDI) to Europe during the period of 2009–2017 under the guidance of BRI. To explore the heterogeneity of Chinese investments behavior within Europe, this paper summarizes the apparent characteristics of Chinese investment patterns in Western Europe and the CEE region. We show that BRI has — against all expectations — no impact on Chinese investment in the CEE region but — in line with expectations — Chinese investors have changed their motives to invest in CEE countries with a shift towards the service sector. To investigate the impact of BRI on Chinese investors, the period of study is divided into two phases: (1) 2009–2013: period before the proposal of BRI and (2) 2014–2017: period after the initiation of BRI. Then the rationale behind the observed differences is examined in detail.

The OBOR-One Belt One Road initiative has potential to enable further development of the Port of Rijeka. The European seaports are important for China in the development of the OBOR initiative, especially the ports on the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) corridor of the OBOR. Chinese investors i.e. terminal operators in the past two decades have strategically invested in the European seaports to strengthen their position and obtain the OBOR goals. European seaports got the opportunity to improve their business through Chinese infrastructure investments and through China’s trade dominance which can bring more cargo to the European seaports. Thus, the OBOR i.e. Maritime Silk Road-MSR provide new possibilities for further development of the Port of Rijeka. The Chinese investors expressed their interest to invest in the Port of Rijeka, but concrete investments and collaboration regarding OBOR have not been realized. In this paper, the OBOR goals in Europe and the current status of OBOR in Europe will be identified. Strategic activities of China in the European seaports will be analyzed. The perspective the Port of Rijeka in the OBOR initiative i.e. MSR corridor will be elaborated according to the analyzed Chinese strategic activities in the European seaports and relevant aspects of the Port of Rijeka business: geo-traffic position, position on the OBOR corridors i.e. MSR corridor, membership in the NAPA – North Adriatic Port Association, shipping services and railway services, port infrastructure and investments.

Introduction Jessica Keough (bio) In 2013, China's president Xi Jinping announced an initiative that would set the course for much of China's foreign policy toward its Eurasian neighbors. Consisting of two parts—an overland "belt" connecting China with Central Asia, Russia, South Asia, and Europe and a maritime "road" linking Chinese ports with those in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe—the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) envisions a vast network of railways, highways, ports, pipelines, and communication infrastructure spanning the Eurasian continent and facilitating trade, investment, and people-to-people exchange (see Figure 1). In 2015, Beijing announced a plan to develop six economic corridors to advance this initiative (see Figure 2). China's leadership has rallied behind BRI, pledging substantial investment, creating new financial institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Silk Road Fund, and making diplomatic commitments to countries along the proposed routes. To many observers, BRI appears to be an outline of China's ambitious new grand strategy, 1 but what do states in the region think of this initiative? The seven contributors to this Asia Policy roundtable seek to answer this question by examining how Asian states along this new Silk Road view BRI and its potential implications. Michael Clarke begins the roundtable with an essay that analyzes China's motivations and objectives. He concludes that BRI is motivated by Beijing's desire to resolve long-term domestic, economic, and geopolitical challenges by strengthening states in China's frontier regions, exporting Chinese capital and labor, and establishing an alternative to the current international order. BRI integrates these objectives into a strategy that furthers China's goal of returning to great-power status without provoking strong counterreactions. Andrew Small seeks to understand Pakistan's role in BRI through an examination of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Despite Pakistan and China's long history of an "all-weather friendship," previous joint infrastructure and economic projects have generally failed to deliver [End Page 66] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. China's Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Source: "West China Seeks Fortune on Modern Silk Road," Xinhua, May 15, 2016 ≈ http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-05/15/c_135360904.htm. Originally published in Chinese in Xinhua, 2014. Reprinted with minor changes from Nadège Rolland, China's Eurasia Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2017), 49. [End Page 67] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. The Six Economic Corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative Source: Hong Kong Trade Development Council Head Office, "The Belt and Road Initiative," January 21, 2016 ≈ http://china-trade-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/The-Belt-and-Road-Initiative/The-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-More-Information/obor/en/1/1X3CGF6L/1X0A36H1.htm. Reprinted from Rolland, China's Eurasia Century? 73. [End Page 68] on their rhetoric. Although both sides clearly stand to gain from CPEC and some progress has been made, long-standing challenges in Pakistan provide reason for skepticism that the project will in fact meet Beijing's goals. While not on board with BRI, India is closely watching the initiative, particularly CPEC. Harsh Pant and Ritika Passi argue in their essay that pressure is mounting on New Delhi to decide whether to remain on the sidelines. India is wary of the security implications of BRI, particularly for the contested area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and for Indian Ocean ports and sea lanes; however, China's infrastructure development projects could be a boon that increases the region's economic interdependence and gives India leverage to shape the initiative from within. India thus faces challenging decisions as BRI unfolds. Russia, by contrast, has moved from caution to an embrace of BRI, at least for now. The initiative will expand China's presence not only in Central Asia, Russia's traditional sphere of influence, but also further westward in Turkey, the Middle East, and Europe. While Moscow recognizes this dilution of its own influence, Sebastien Peyrouse argues that Russia's economic crisis and the effects of Western sanctions have left...

The growing number of developing and emerging economies today challenge the conditionality of Western-based international organisations in which they have little power. China, in particular, has been building on its economic leverage to offer an alternative development model to the world – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). On 27 November 2023, The Economist published an article with an existential headline, ‘Will China save the planet or destroy it?’ drawing our eyes to the role of China and the BRI in global warming. Given the BRI’s scale and potential impact on the global environment, this role is hard to ignore. Beijing has recently transformed the BRI by introducing a series of policy documents that address sustainability and climate as one of the BRI’s major focuses. The fundamental questions are: (1) to what extent does the BRI as an alternative development model help solve global sustainability risks, and particularly climate crisis? and (2) what limitations might erode the BRI’s positive effect on global sustainability and, particularly, climate change? Based on the case study of the BRI projects in Central Asia, this article argues that, despite the initiative’s capacity to drive sustainability globally, it has not brought real change. The reliance on the ‘host country standard’ produces policy inconsistencies, regulatory loopholes, and a lack of accountability from Chinese investors. From the global sustainability perspective, this means that China has not yet transformed the BRI to become a sustainability game-changer to drive the climate agenda globally.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), since its inception in late 2013, has drawn tremendous global attention. The views of political leaders, business people, the media, and analysts on the prospect of the BRI are ostensibly polarized. One group asserts that the BRI will dramatically increase Beijing’s global influence, particularly in China’s neighborhood. Another group surmises that the BRI is expected to fail because of insurmountable challenges and is expected to fail. This article joins the debate by exploring the impact of the BRI on Southeast Asia’s regional order. The author holds a middle-ground position and argues that the actual impact of the BRI should neither be easily dismissed nor overestimated. More likely, through the BRI, China’s influence in Southeast Asia will increase but not to the extent of forging a Sinocentric order in the region. This can be explained by three major factors: (a) the responses of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its member states toward the BRI, (b) the effects of alternative infrastructure initiatives proposed by other major powers in Southeast Asia, and (c) China’s questionable ability to deliver its BRI promises.

This study investigates the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the construction sector in Southeast Asia, focusing on Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Qualitative research approach is used to analyze the implications of Chinese investments in these countries, exploring both the opportunities and challenges faced by Chinese investors. Key research questions address the resilience of the construction sector, the obstacles encountered by investors, and the influence of policy on the construction business. Through interviews with CEOs and senior managers of major construction companies and a review of relevant documents, the study uncovers the economic and geopolitical motivations behind China’s BRI strategy. The findings reveal significant insights into the benefits and drawbacks of BRI financing, providing recommendations for overcoming challenges and leveraging future opportunities in Southeast Asian construction sectors.

This paper aims to describe the reason of China to change its governance of investment mainly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Southeast Asia. Although many countries in this region need huge investment to improve and build their infrastructure as well as infrastructure’s connectivity between countries, there is some fear involving China’s investment in the past. These are unintended consequences of China’s investment on environmental, social, and debt-trap in certain poor countries. Nevertheless, there is still hope for better Chinese investment such as consideration of local people’s aspirations and more transparency. At the regional level, the BRI can synergize with local connectivity initiatives, such as the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) and Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum, and encourage the integration of the ASEAN Economic Community. Different from the previous studies, this paper also uses the historical approach by learning the relation between China and Southeast Asian countries in the past. Our argument is Southeast Asian countries do not need to fear Chinese economic expansions based on history that China is not a political threat in the region. However, China should change the governance of BRI to accommodate the interest of people in Southeast Asian countries.

The Chinese outward direct investment has experienced a dramatic growth worldwide under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework in the past few years, and naturally this growing Chinese capital also fosters the cooperation between Central East Europe (CEE) region and China. This research examines diversity of determinants holding impact on Chinese FDI flows from 2009~2018 in CEE region with implementation of panel data analysis, and our result partially explains what cause the heterogeneity concerning amount and density of Chinese capital in CEE countries. Our findings suggest us that generally countries with superior capacity in manufacturing sector and better performance in exportation are preferable capital destinations since Chinese investment is dominated by purposes like EU market access, relieving industrial overcapacity, industry upgrading, and a more effective integration of global industry chain. It is also illustrated in our findings that, from a macro perspective, it is intrinsic and inherent factors of individual economies and political concerns, rather than short-term financial factors, like financial market volatility, that could significantly determine the Chinese capital outflows in this region.

This paper examines how Chinese transnational investments, as (re)framed in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), contribute to changes in urbanisation processes in Southeast Asia. On the ground, the BRI becomes contextualised and intersects with local and national development trajectories. The growing presence of Chinese actors in the region intensifies urban dynamics, especially in secondary cities and emerging urban sites, where the BRI is used as a lever for local internationalisation strategies. The heterogeneous nature of the links between the BRI and various large urban projects is demonstrated on the basis of case studies involving changing consortia of private and public Chinese and Southeast Asian actors. A regional approach allows us to identify connections and shared processes across Southeast Asian countries. It provides a historically grounded understanding of how the BRI incorporates long‐term interactions with China and more recent partnerships in Southeast Asian countries. The paper paves the way for a research agenda that contests the image of China as a monolithic actor implementing the BRI uniformly and consistently. Further analyses are needed to examine systems and networks of actors as well as the local urban politics that affect the BRI on the ground.

The increasing role of China in the world economy every year turns attention to the foreign policy of the Chinese government. Chinas direct investments abroad are of interest today, especially given the fact that China has announced strategies and initiatives such as: Go Out, The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Made in China 2025 (MIC25). Moreover, the EU countries play a significant role in the regional diversification of Chinese investments abroad. Chinese investors have long stopped investing in all industries and countries, and have focused on most promising industries, mainly in developed countries. Today, one of the most ambitious projects in China is The Belt and Road Initiative, where the EU countries play a key role. In this regard, it becomes important to analyze Chinese investments in the New Silk Road projects in the EU countries. The purpose of the research is to identify the main industries and countries of greatest interest to China based on the analysis of the ten largest transactions of China within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative in the EU countries.

The trend of uneven social and economic development persists not only at the global level – the gap between the rich North and the poor South is noticeable in many regions of the world, including Europe. Of course, a similar disparity reduces the investment attractiveness of the less developed countries and their individual territories and, as a result, limits their economic development. However, there are external partner states that are ready to provide support. One of these accelerators is the People's Republic of China. The purpose of this article is to show the impact of the participation of European countries in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the development of their regions. The research is based on the concept of transregionalism and a systematic approach. The structural and functional analysis allowed to consider the features of the relationship between the participants in the process. Analysis of the informative materials and other resources devoted to infrastructure projects in European regions, implemented with the support of the People's Republic of China and the Belt and Road Initiative, was carried out. By methods of generalization, comparative and comparative analysis, the results of the participation of regions in the BRI are revealed, positive and negative effects of interaction at the regional level are shown. The results of the analysis of cooperation between the regions of Greece, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Italy with Chinese investors are presented. The key infrastructure projects implemented in the regions of fifteen European countries within the framework of the Belt and Road initiative are shown. The most attractive territories and industries for investment have been identified. The conclusions drawn from the results of the study may be useful for further analysis of transregional relations between Europe and Asia, in particular, within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.

As of June 2023, China has signed over 200 cooperation documents on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with 153 countries and 32 international organizations. It has also signed third-party market cooperation documents with more than a dozen developed countries and established multilateral cooperation platforms covering over 20 specialized fields. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the benefits of China's BRI and its impact on participating countries. Through infrastructure development in railways, energy, highways, ports, and digital networks, the BRI has enhanced the economic development capabilities of participating countries and strengthened economic cooperation between the Eurasian continent. The BRI has achieved significant results in improving transportation and logistics efficiency, developing energy infrastructure, and upgrading communication systems, thus facilitating regional connectivity. The BRI has also provided richer and more convenient financing options for participating countries, strengthening trade links and increasing trade volume. Through trade cooperation, the BRI has enhanced economic ties between China and countries in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe, promoting trade integration among participating countries. The BRI involves both developed and developing countries and represents a new exploration of global economic governance paradigms and environmental protection. For developing countries, the BRI offers a new path for participating in global economic governance, reducing poverty, and advancing their own development. The authors predict that the BRI should become an important force in promoting global shared prosperity. As the initiator of the BRI, China claims a leading role in global and international cooperation in the 21st century. BRI is more than logistics project connecting Asia, Africa and Europe. Primarily BRI is a global project of mutually beneficial cooperation between different countries. The article proposes a rationale for a global project of economic and trade cooperation within the framework of the BRI in the future.

Chinese investment in South Asia is growing rapidly and constantly since the last decade. Within a very short span China has become one of the largest sources of foreign capital among all the South Asian nations. Chinese investment in this region ballooned especially after the launch of Beijing’s highly ambitious plan Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese investment has primarily targeted physical infrastructure projects such as port, road, and power generation in most of the countries in the region. BRI played a critical role in boosting Chinese investment in South Asia as this region holds a great importance to this initiative. Except India and Bhutan, all other South Asian nations have participated in the BRI. Pakistan and Sri Lanka are among the largest BRI partners in the world. Though BRI brought several benefits to the participants it was accompanied by numerous challenges.

The global focus on infrastructure development has placed the management of material flows at the centre of geopolitics. For China, this has involved large-scale, global port investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which have been premised on an expansion in extra-territorial forms of infrastructural development to bolster global economic integration with strategic geopolitical targets. This article argues for the need to uncover the underlying processes driving Chinese capitalism outwardly to make a balanced assessment of the geopolitical implications of Chinese investments in ports globally. Using the concept of logistical fixes, this article showcases how Chinese investments in global port infrastructure are used to create, correct and direct capital circulation processes to buttress China’s integration model with the global economy and sustain its economic growth model. We highlight the relevance of these variegated relations and motives by examining three Chinese investments into global port infrastructure, respectively the Chancay Multipurpose Port in Peru, the Vietnam International Container Terminal Port in Vietnam and the Valencia Port in Spain. By construing Chinese port investments and the BRI as a variegated process, it is possible to develop a better analytical grasp of the diverse strategies, objectives and spatial dynamics underlying these initiatives. We can thereby move beyond viewing China's BRI as a monolithic expansion strategy and instead analytically foreground the variegated strategic considerations, functional challenges and governance dilemmas that underpin Chinese port investments across regional and global contexts.