Rethinking China’s quest for railway standardization: competition and complementation

Abstract

The Railroad Economic Belt (REB, yilu yidai) was initiated by the China Railway Corporation to support the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The goal of REB is to enhance interconnectivity and deepen the BRI’s infiltration through the export of ‘China Standards’ (zhongguo biaozhun) in railway development. This paper focuses on China’s export of the ‘China Standard’ in highspeed rail and the further integration of Eurasia through the China Railway Express (zhong’ou banlie). It examines their implications on the global highspeed rail market and global logistics governance, respectively. Indeed, China can become a rule-maker in some functional domains of global governance. This paper argues that the expansion of Chinese standards has been done through a ‘top-level design’ approach. Chinese economic statecraft focused on strengthening policy guidance and power concentration at the central level. Standards that are competing in nature face daunting challenges as they have receive backlashes from international competitors. On the other hand, those that are complementary have been much more receptive to international actors.