Critical Reflections on China’s Belt & Road Initiative
Critical Reflections on China’s Belt & Road Initiative

Author: Alan Chong

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-01-24

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 9811320985

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This book provides insights into China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from Asia Pacific and the Middle East. It offers critical perspectives from various directions, not excluding historical investigations, human geography approaches and neo-Marxist inclinations. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents one of the biggest geopolitical visions since the Cold War and offers the possibilities of an intercontinental vision of Aid politics, along with prospects for pan-Asianism. By and large, any geopolitical vision that purports to foster inter-regional dialogue and materialist development of peoples and economies is bound to have its flaws. The Belt and Road Initiative bears hallmarks of the socio-political tradition of Chinese authoritarian infrastructure politics while also offering a possible alternative to the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ of free markets, deregulation and a shift towards liberal democracy. Additionally, the Belt and Road Initiative opens up wide open intellectual spaces for dialogues between Asians, Arabs and Westerners on the meaning of inclusive inter-continental relationships in philosophy, geography and economics. The significance of this is often underplayed in Chinese official statements whereas this book introduces these possibilities within its assorted sections. “The book is about much more than the material aspects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In fact, various chapter authors use the Belt and Road to look at perhaps the most fundamental issue of our times: how does one build a global world order and societies that are inclusive, cohesive and capable of managing interests of all stakeholders as well as political, cultural, ethnic and religious differences in ways that all are recognized without prejudice and/or discrimination?” —Prof. James Dorsey, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

China’s Belt and Road Initiative at Ten
China’s Belt and Road Initiative at Ten

Author: Robert Looney

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-11-23

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1000799956

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This volume assesses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it approaches its tenth year in operation. The programme has gone through a difficult transition since its inception in 2013, with an environment developing in a way utterly unanticipated by Chinese decision-makers. Despite pragmatic adjustments to the BRI, the lack of a firm empirical base has impeded the BRI and led to its demise in many countries. With the accumulation of nearly ten years of project and economic data, it is possible to make an in-depth assessment of the BRI. For this purpose, the study examines the infrastructure component of the BRI in 39 countries, stretching from the Americas to Oceania and, finally, South Asia. The study finds a strong relationship between a country’s progress in improved governance and the quality of its infrastructure. Countries that have benefited from the BRI have simultaneously achieved progress in governance areas, such as the rule of law and control of corruption. By not emphasizing improved governance structures, China condemns many of its partners to failure. Researchers, students, and economic development specialists from Latin America to South Asia and Oceania will find this study a useful departure from the volumes of anecdotal BRI assessments.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative
China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Author: Alfred Gerstl

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-29

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1000260577

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This edited volume presents a trans-disciplinary and multifaceted assessment of the strategic and economic impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on three regions, namely Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Eastern Europe. The contributions to this book demonstrate the requirement of a more realistic view concerning the anticipated economic benefits of the New Silk Road. The contributors critique the strategic effects of China’s opaque long-term grand strategy on the regional and global political order. Specific countries that are covered are Finland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Poland, and Thailand. Additionally, case studies from South Asia and Africa, notably India and Ethiopia, enable insightful comparisons. Encouraging readers to critically challenge mainstream interpretations of the aims and impacts of the BRI, this book should interest academics and students from various disciplines including Political Science, International Relations, Political Geography, Sociology, Economics, International Development, and Chinese Studies.

Civilization-States of China and India
Civilization-States of China and India

Author: Ravi Dutt Bajpai

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-01-30

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 9356402000

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Ravi Dutt Bajpai examines some of the pivotal episodes in the modern history of China and India to argue that their behaviours reflect the self-identity of a civilization-state. The book starts from the progression of China and India into putatively modern polities during the colonial period, as the two indigenous societies imagined their national identities and nationalist aspirations primarily by contrasting their civilizational attributes with the Western colonial occupiers. As newly independent nation-states, both believed that their international status flowed from their civilizational glories. Therefore, despite their material and institutional fragility, China and India decided to pursue complete autonomy to manage their domestic and foreign affairs. Indian Prime Minister Nehru's policy of non-alignment, envisioning an alternate world order beyond the great power competition, was inspired by Indian civilizational ethos. The book also examines the Sino-Indian war of 1962 from a civilization-state perspective and argues that Tibet represented a conflict of civilizational influence. Chapters also explore some of the more recent developments, such as the Indian nuclear test of 1998, China's ambitious Belt and Road (BRI) infrastructure project aimed at reviving the ancient Silk Road, and India's campaign to regain its civilizational status of Vishwa Guru, as the continued manifestations of the two civilization-states endeavouring to regain their past glories in the contemporary world.

China’s Western Frontier and Eurasia
China’s Western Frontier and Eurasia

Author: Zenel Garcia

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-16

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1000436632

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China has emerged as a dominant power in Eurasian affairs that not only exercises significant political and economic power, but increasingly, ideational power too. Since the founding of the People’s Republic, Chinese Communist Party leaders have sought to increase state capacity and exercise more effective control over their western frontier through a series of state-building initiatives. Although these initiatives have always incorporated an international component, the collapse of the USSR, increasing globalization, and the party’s professed concerns about terrorism, separatism, and extremism have led to a region-building project in Eurasia. Garcia traces how domestic elite-led narratives about security and development generate state-building initiatives, and then region-building projects. He also assesses how region-building projects are promoted through narratives of the historicity of China’s engagement in Eurasia, the promotion of norms of non-interference, and appeals to mutual development. Finally, he traces the construction of regions through formal and informal institutions as well as integrative infrastructure. By presenting three phases of Chinese domestic state-building and region-building from 1988-present, Garcia shows how region-building projects have enabled China to increase state capacity, control, and development in its western frontier. Recommended for scholars of China’s international relations and development policy.

Chinese Regionalism in Asia
Chinese Regionalism in Asia

Author: Tiang Boon Hoo

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-29

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1000617998

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With globalization on the wane in a world fractured by growing great power competition, Hoo and McKinney argue that regionalism is likely to re-emerge as a focal area of significance and interest in the coming years. In Asia, how regionalism evolves is inescapably linked to China’s part in this story. Hoo, McKinney and their contributors will help readers better understand regionalism as it is approached, conceived and practiced by China. Looking past the conventional attention on the Belt-Road Initiative, the contributors examine the evolving perspectives on regionalism within China, the forms which this regionalism has taken and the implications for the strategic order in Asia. This includes a focus on newer architecture such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); lesser-known mechanisms such as the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC); and more traditional ones such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). A valuable resource for scholars and students of China’s foreign relations, and of Asian regionalism and strategic order.

The United States and China in the Era of Global Transformations
The United States and China in the Era of Global Transformations

Author: Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2023-11-23

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1529228468

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Over the last two decades, China has emerged as one of the most powerful state actors in the post-Cold War international system. This book provides a multifaceted and spatially oriented analysis of how China’s re-emergence as a global power impacts the dominance of the United States as well as domestic state and non-state actors in various world-regions, including the Asia-Pacific, Africa, South America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe and the Arctic. Chapters reflect on how and under which conditions competition (and cooperation) between the United States and China vary across these regions and what such variations mean for the prospects of war and peace, universal human dignity and global cooperation.

The China-led Belt and Road Initiative and its Reflections
The China-led Belt and Road Initiative and its Reflections

Author: Mehdi Parvizi Amineh

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-07-12

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1000597229

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This book analyzes the origins and the impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on diplomacy, economy (trade, investment, finance), and security among selected host countries and regions in Asia, Africa, and the European Union. By examining the geopolitical economy of BRI activities, it concisely describes the impact of the rise of China and its BRI policy strategy on the reshaping of world order and global governance. This volume explores the BRI by addressing several key questions including: • Why did the Chinese leadership set up the BRI? • What are the activities of BRI projects in the participating countries and related regions? • What are the challenges to the successful implementation of the BRI in the various countries and regions? Moreover, through its analysis of the abovementioned questions, it provides novel contributions to the ongoing scholarly debates between Chinese and non-Chinese scholars – among others, the debate surrounding the “rise of China” and its impact on global governance. Featuring an extensive variety of expert contributors, this study will be an essential reading for students and scholars of International Relations and Global Political Economy as well as Chinese politics and those with an interest in the Belt and Road Initiative more broadly.

Confucian Governmentality and Socialist Autocracy in Contemporary China
Confucian Governmentality and Socialist Autocracy in Contemporary China

Author: Chih-Yu Shih

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2024-06-25

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1529238900

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In October 2022, the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded, extending Xi Jinping's leadership indefinitely, which many view as a one-party dictatorship. Exploring Confucian and socialist principles, this book examines the relationship between the citizens and leaders in the Chinese autocracy. By applying a Foucauldian twist to a range of topics - from discussing the politics of love and pandemic nationalism to analysing Xi's personality - it challenges the binary of authoritarianism and democracy. Interdisciplinary in nature, it will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of politics, international relations, culture studies and critical theory.

Hedging Strategies in Southeast Asia
Hedging Strategies in Southeast Asia

Author: Alfred Gerstl

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-08

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1000605361

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Introducing a re-conceptualized comprehensive hedging framework, this book analyses the relations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam with China in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the South China Sea dispute. The author argues that ASEAN and the three Southeast Asian governments pursue a hedging strategy towards the rising China. Hedging expands the strategic options of smaller powers which are in Neorealism often restricted to bandwagoning and balancing. A hedging strategy, however, can simultaneously contain both elements of bandwagoning (e.g., in economics) and balancing (e.g., in security affairs). Even though the four hedging strategies and their implementation vary, in principle they all seek closer economic relations with Beijing, while maintaining strong security relations with Washington. A major innovation of the new hedging concept is the inclusion of the perceptions of the hedger on the risks and opportunities stemming from the relations with the hedging target and of the strategic value of potential hedging partners. The comprehensive hedging concept and the important empirical findings will be of interest to researchers in the fields of International Relations, Security, Political Geography, Economics, History, and Asian Studies.