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Published in:
China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Introduction and Overview Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. The Perception Survey of Asian Opinion Leaders

Authors : Pradumna B. Rana, Xianbai Ji

Published in: China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Publisher: Springer Singapore

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Abstract

This chapter presents the results of a perception survey of Asian opinion leaders, defined as including policy-makers, academics, business representatives, and media practitioners from 26 Asian countries that have signed a BRI agreement with China. The respondents’ perspectives on, among others, the following issues were solicited: (1) why China launched the BRI; (2) the perceived benefits and risks to the countries participating in the BRI; and (3) policy reforms they would like to recommend both to China and their own governments to make the BRI a win-win proposition. The responses of over 1200 opinion leaders from all over Asia presented a fairly positive, yet mixed, assessment of China’s BRI. A considerable number of policy recommendations were also offered by the respondents to both China and to their own governments on how the BRI could be improved.

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previous chapter Potential Economic Impact of BRI: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis
next chapter BRI and Southeast Asia
Footnotes
1
The IRB reference number is IRB-2019-04-006.
 
2
The sample was developed by augmenting the email banks used in Rana, Chia, and Jinjarak (2012), Rana and Chia (2017) and Ji et al. (2016) with publicly available email addresses and mailing lists of interest.
 
3
For readability, the figures in this chapter are rounded to one decimal point.
 
4
Additional driving factors suggested by respondents (i.e., ‘others’ in Figure 4.1) include ‘stav[ing] off environmental pollution in China’, overtaking the United States as the world’s preeminent power, rebalancing trade relations from the United States to Asian next-door neighbours, resuscitating the ‘good old days’ of Chinese tributary system, achieving ‘digital dominance’, setting global technical standards, and ‘building new visions for domestic politics to legitimise [Chinese Communist Party’s] rule at the new stage of development’.
 
6
In this regard, the highest degrees of scepticism of the BRI being an economic instrument to bolster political ties came from South Korea and New Zealand (33.3% each).
 
7
This is mainly due to the fact that most respondents were from countries that are not sea-/land-locked. Examining specifically responses collected from Asian land-locked developing countries (LLDCs), the survey finds that close to 75 per cent of the respondents agreed that the BRI could address their countries’ geographical isolation problem. Asian LLDCs’ economic structures traditionally reply on resource-intensive extractive industries to propel growth (Bolesta 2019); thus, the BRI if done right is uniquely well positioned to help with their economic transformation and diversification efforts.
 
8
This is in part due to a lack of concrete evidence. A Filipino respondent from the Department of Trade and Industry explained: ‘This issue [DTD] has been proliferating in the media discussion for some time but I have not seen any document to support it’.
 
9
A Malaysian journalist observed, ‘Frankly having been to BRI nations like Cambodia, my personal observation is the jobs are given to Chinese companies and Chinese workers.’
 
10
In the comments, a few respondents mentioned additional sensitivities about Chinese companies growing genetically modified crops in foreign countries and the BRI putting their countries’ relationship with other great powers, mostly the United States and India, under strain.
 
11
This finding must be interpreted with caution as 40.6 per cent noted that it was too early to tell.
 
12
For example, China should enhance transparency in relation to procurement practice, contract-awarding mechanism and financing terms and conditions (see Chap. 8 for more discussion).
 
13
One exception is Georgia where only around a third (34.8%) of the respondents held this view.
 
Literature
ADB. 2017. Meeting Asia’s Infrastructure Needs. Manila: Asian Development Bank.
ECN. 2017. Up and Running? Opportunity and Risk Along China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Singapore: Economist Corporate Network.
IFF. 2018. A Route to Economic Growth – The Belt and Road Initiative 2018 Survey. In The IFF China Report 2018. Beijing: International Finance Forum.
———. 2019. The Belt and Road Initiative 2019 Survey – A New Driver for Globalisation? In The IFF China Report 2019. Beijing: International Finance Forum.
Ji, Xianbai, Pradumna B. Rana, Wai-Mun Chia, and Changtai Li. 2016. Economic and Strategic Dimensions of Mega-FTAs: A Perception Survey of Asian Opinion Leaders. In RSIS Working Paper. Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Rana, Pradumna B., and Wai-Mun Chia. 2017. Jumpstarting South Asia: Revisiting Economic Reforms and Look East Policies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.CrossRef
Rana, Pradumna B., Wai-Mun Chia, and Yothin Jinjarak. 2012. Monetary Integration in ASEAN+3: A Perception Survey of Opinion Leaders. Journal of Asian Economics 23 (1): 1–21.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
The Perception Survey of Asian Opinion Leaders
Authors
Pradumna B. Rana
Xianbai Ji
Copyright Year
2020
Publisher
Springer Singapore
Book
China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Print ISBN: 978-981-15-5170-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-15-5171-0

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5171-0_4