The Belt and Road Initiative and the Transformation of Globalization

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-37
Author(s):  
Professor Biliang Hu

Globalisation contributed to the economic, social, political and cultural development of the deve- loped and developing countries. At the same time, it had an adverse effect, which is in-creasing disparity of income between various social groups and countries. The continuation of such process will lead to the weakening of globalisation, so there is a need to transform globalisation. According to the Author, the initiative of China, entitled: New Belt and New Road is an example of such actions and will contribute to giving new impetus to the process of globalisation in the future. <b>Globalization is now facing one of the biggest challenges in the history: British exit from the EU (Brexit), USA’s quit from the Paris Agreement on climate change, USA also quitted from TPP agreement as well as from UNESCO. People start worry about the next moves of globalization. Therefore, we need to discuss the future of globalization seriously. </b> Clearly, globalization brought very positive impact on economic, social, political and cultural developments for all the countries including the developed as well as developing economies. However, globalization also brought some negative effects, such as the income disparity among different groups of people and different countries. It has been continually enlarging, not narrowing down in the process of globalization. How to deal with the continual globalization? Of course there are different ways. We have been seeing the rising of the nationalism, the protectionism in some of the countries, we have been seeing withdraws of some countries from the global governance institutions. At the same time, we find that China has been making great efforts not only pushing forward the continual globalization but also trying to transfer the old style globalization to the new style globalization which is what I called the transformation of globalization in the new era through the Belt and Road Initiative.

Author(s):  
Zhongying Pang

This chapter discusses China’s changing attitude, doctrine, and policy actions towards international order and offers some tentative findings on the complexity of China’s role in the struggle over the future of international order. This complexity results from China’s efforts simultaneously to consolidate its presence in the existing international order but also to reform existing global governance institutions. The ambition to seek an alternative international order makes it, at least to some extent, a revisionist state. While pursuing an agenda to reform the existing international order from within, China additionally has begun to sponsor an unprecedented number of new international institutions and initiatives of its own, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). How this will play out will depend above all on the interaction of China with a USA still wedded to its hegemonic role in world politics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (10) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
N. Rogozhina

The choice of the countries of Southeast Asia as an example for analyzing the nature of interaction between developing countries and China within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative is not accidental. The very logic of China’s stated goals of gaining dominant positions in the world economy and politics makes it inevitable that the countries of Southeast Asia located in geographic proximity to it are included in its long-term economic and political plans. The question, however, is to what extent do they meet the interests of the Southeast Asian countries themselves? The solution to this question is the main subject of research in the article. There are objective prerequisites for mutually beneficial cooperation. The Belt and Road projects are viewed by China as a tool for economic expansion into the region with the prospect of taking a leading position there, using the interest of Southeast Asian countries in the inflow of foreign investment to create modern infrastructure, the lack of which narrows their opportunities for further economic growth, maintaining competitiveness and developing integration ties within ASEAN Community. Expert assessments made by international organizations confirm the positive impact of OBOR projects on the economic development of Southeast Asian countries and although today it is too early to draw any conclusions, since the initiative is only at the initial stage of its implementation in the region, nevertheless the case studies presented in the article indicate a mismatch in the positions of the parties on a number of issues related to the financing of projects, their lack of transparency. non-compliance with environmental and social requirements. The support of the initiative on the part of the Southeast Asian countries does not automatically mean their acceptance of the terms of the agreements proposed by China, which are far from always consistent with their national interests and give rise to fears in society about its expansionist intentions. Therefore, in many Southeast Asian countries, participation in OBOR projects is turning into a subject of political discourse, which reflects the presence of disagreements in society and confrontation of interests regarding the advisability of rapprochement with China, given the associated economic and political risks. The countries of Southeast Asia can be conditionally divided into two groups according to their relation to the Belt and Road initiative. The first group includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, whose position can be described as national pragmatism. While supporting the Chinese initiative in general, they nevertheless assess the possible risks of their participation in projects and seek to reduce them. The second group is represented by Laos and Cambodia, whose leadership unconditionally supports the Chinese initiative, guided by the interests of their own survival, which largely depends on Chinese assistance. Therefore, the prospect of falling into a debt trap and increasing economic dependence on the PRC and even the threat of losing sovereignty does not deter them from participating in highly controversial projects from a commercial point of view. Based on the analysis made, the author comes to the conclusion that, given the existing alignment of political forces in Southeast Asia, China can count on promoting its initiative in the region, which, however, does not automatically lead to an increase in its political influence and to the creation of a China-centric model of regional order. Acknowledgements. The article was prepared within the project “Post-crisis world order: challenges and technologies, competition and cooperation” supported by the grant from Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation program for research projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development (agreement № 075-15-2020-783).


2018 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
pp. 381-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Young

Responses to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been mixed. Many commentators have welcomed the opportunity for infrastructure development and projects to build economic, political and social connectivity across the region. Others have been openly critical or slow to formulate a clear position. In general, advanced economies have responded less positively than developing economies. This paper employs a constructivist approach to interpret responses to the BRI in advanced economies through analysis of commentary in the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It identifies a diversity of responses within and among these economies and a strong ideational coherence in the frameworks used to assess the BRI. It is concluded that the reception of Chinese-promoted concepts in international affairs, like the BRI, remains challenging due to the dominance of liberal and realist assessments and the accompanying political values. This suggests a need for greater intellectual engagement and more substantial feedback between China and the advanced economies, so as to open the way for a long overdue regional conversation on how development is conceptualized and co-created in a region with diverse approaches to regional economic policy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 7055 ◽  
Author(s):  
Degong Ma ◽  
Chun Lei ◽  
Farid Ullah ◽  
Raza Ullah ◽  
Qadar Bakhsh Baloch

For the last few years, the execution of the Belt and Road Initiative (hereinafter referred to as the BRI) and China’s outward foreign direct investment (hereinafter referred to as OFDI) in Europe have seen a significant upward trend. For our current paper, we collected empirical data pertaining to China’s OFDI and foreign trade (gathered from 21 European countries in the trade gravity market for the period 2003 to 2016) that yielded the following results: (a) China’s OFDI to Europe has significantly promoted international trade between China and European countries. On the other hand, OFDI has equally promoted China’s exports to European counties, while it has not encouraged China’s imports from European counties. (b) The Belt and Road Initiative has had a positive impact on China’s exports to European counties and has had a negative impact on China’s imports from European counties. (c) There have been both complementary trade impacts and substitution trade impacts when China has directly invested in European countries, but the complementary impact was much stronger than its substitution impact in the chosen sample period.


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