What has Belt and Road gas cooperation brought us for —— The financial benefits, the modern governance, or the narrowed distance between cultures?

Abstract

China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, providing itself with a stable foundation to deepen the gas cooperation with signatories. However, such activities would inevitably confront the cross-cultural challenges that go hand in hand with lucrative opportunities. This paper explores the net policy effects of BRI in the aspects of economy, politics, and culture, together with other impacts from the national traits and the resource types. Results show that there does exist a significant BRI net policy effect on the host country’s GDP per capita and Chinese oversea projects’ net cash flow. But there’s no significance in reducing the political distance & cultural distance between the host county and China. While gas, as vital low-carbon fossil energy, does have brought changes quite differently from the traditional oil business, not only to the host country but also to Chinese investment. What’s more, even in the same country, value divergence exists between the official government & the masses. Finally, Chinese oil & gas investment preference is known for “high risk, high return” and an inclination to countries with a similar social hierarchy to its own.