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Open Access 2024 | Open Access | Book

Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Author: Hong Yu

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

Book Series : Asia in Transition

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About this book

This open access book provokes critical thinking regarding the most ambitious Chinese project since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The book presents extensive quality research and original insights in assessing the status of China’s outbound investment and construction projects under the BRI umbrella. Referring to case studies and projects of selected countries from Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, the author sheds new light on the issues and problems associated with the BRI's implementation and discusses both the readjustments and prospects for the BRI. Finally, this book demarcates the limits and potential of the world’s second largest economy in pushing for the BRI, which is challenged by enormous domestic tensions and external pressures. It also identifies and analyzes potential new collaboration areas between the Belt and Road countries and China under the BRI framework in the context of the post-COVID-19 era. It provides an outstanding reference for academics, students, policymakers, and the business community working in areas of international affairs and Asian economics and development, particularly those interested in Sino-relations and Chinese power dynamics in the global world order.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 1. China’s Push for the BRI in a Changing World: Origins and Motivations
Abstract
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is at the heart of the paradigm shift of Chinese foreign policy. Since its announcement by China’s President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI has emerged as the centrepiece of China’s aspiration to become a global power.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 2. BRI as China’s Platform to Push for Economic Globalisation
Abstract
Against the backdrop of global economic growth slowdown, rising unemployment and widening income disparities and de-industrialisation in some developed nations, in the West, there is growing resentment towards free trade and economic globalisation. In contrast, China has leveraged on the Belt and Road Initiative and other platforms to promote its approach and thinking on global economic development, free trade and economic globalisation.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 3. China-ASEAN Cooperation Under the BRI
Abstract
Southeast Asia has historically been a loose, pluralistic and non-uniform region that has never had a single name or a single geographical identity. Different people of the region have different perceptions and different interpretations.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 4. Vietnam’s Mixed Reactions to China and the BRI
Abstract
Vietnam is China’s largest neighbour in Southeast Asia and has historically been deeply influenced by Chinese culture. Vietnam has been implementing the policy of “innovation and opening up” since 1986, opening up the market, vigorously attracting foreign investment and developing an export-oriented economy.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 5. The China-Singapore Chongqing Connectivity Project: A Cornerstone for Bilateral Relations
Abstract
As part of a country’s overall diplomatic strategy, (Hocking, Localizing Foreign Policy: Non-Central Governments and Multilayered Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1993) argues that its central government can effectively use local external cooperation to break down sensitive and difficult political issues to the local level, thereby helping to reduce external pressures on the central government and helping state institutions to reduce the burden of complex policy implementations.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 6. Riding on the BRI Train: Issues Relating to China’s Strengthening Ties with Cambodia
Abstract
The effects of China’s rising economic ascendency and geopolitical clout are being felt throughout the Southeast Asian countries but most prominently in Cambodia. Cambodia is one of the smallest and least developed nations in Southeast Asia. It has a strategic location between Thailand and Vietnam, two powerful rivals in the region, and borders Laos to the north and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 7. China’s Efforts to Deepen Its Ties with the Middle Eastern Countries: The Case of Saudi Arabia and Iran
Abstract
The trip to Saudi Arabia by President Xi Jinping in December 2022 came shortly after he won a third term as China’s paramount leader at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in late October 2022. It also represents one of the Chinese leader’s first overseas trips for high-profile diplomacy after an almost three-year hiatus due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 8. G7’s Plan for Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment: An Alternative to the BRI?
Abstract
Sino-U.S. strategic competition presents a major obstacle to China’s BRI implementation. US-China rivalry is intensifying and the world appears to be on a path to great power confrontation.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 9. Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s Role in Regional Infrastructure Financing
Abstract
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), proposed by China in 2013 and founded in 2014, is one of the world’s newest multilateral development banks (MDBs).
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 10. Belt and Road Initiative 2.0 in the Making: How Far Can It Go?
Abstract
The shifting global geopolitical environment amidst the power rivalry between the United States and China and the once-in-century global COVID-19 pandemic have pushed China to rely more on the domestic market, demands and resources for generating economic growth at home.
Hong Yu

Open Access

Chapter 11. Reflections on the Belt and Road Initiative at Its 10th Anniversary
Abstract
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reaches the 10th anniversary of implementation in 2023. In 2013, Xi Jinping, China’s President, announced the land-based “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the sea-based “Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century” during his state visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, respectively.
Hong Yu
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Author
Hong Yu
Copyright Year
2024
Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-9996-33-9
Print ISBN
978-981-9996-32-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9633-9

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