Pitfalls or Windfalls in China’s Belt and Road Economic Outreach?

Abstract

In just over six years, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has swiftly expanded to vast swaths of the globe, with as many as 138 countries signing on. In 2017, President Xi Jinping’s signature project was incorporated into the Chinese constitution, assuming extraordinary significance as the “project of the century.” China has couched the program in multilateral terms, with a promise of shared benefits through road and maritime connectivity projects, reviving the ancient Silk Road and revivifying the spirit of commercial, cultural and academic exchange. Cooperation among member countries is envisaged in policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds. However, an active debate has ensued surrounding China’s motivations and the initiative’s potential outcomes for the host countries. Against this backdrop, I examine the economic implications for host countries and regions, using a geo-economic analytical framework.

The rise of China's geointellect?

“…Launched in 2013, the BRI reified President Xi Jinping’s vision for revival of ancient silk routes through infrastructural connectivity across a vast expanse of Asia, Africa and Europe. The venture received a fillip with its incorporation into the Chinese constitution in 2017, reflecting the president’s political resolve to guarantee the mega project’s continuance and marking it a gift to the nation —for generations to remember (Jain, 2020a, 2020b). The BRI has two components, the Silk Road Economic Belt , linking China to Central and South Asia and onward to Europe, and the New Maritime Silk Road , linking China to South East Asia, the Gulf Countries, North Africa, and onward to Europe (World Bank, 2018).…”

“…In the AI areas of computer science – AI, computer vision, machine learning and data mining, natural language processing, and the Web and information retrieval – Chinese universities ranked among the world’s top 10 in publication (by volume) between 2010 and 2020, as of September 5, 2020. Moreover, China launched the Dubhe AI opensource platform in August 2020, developed by Zhejiang Lab and Zhejiang University among others, to compete with the popular TensorFlow and Caffe platforms created by Western academics and firms (CGTN, 2020; Jain, 2020a, 2020b). It involves building a framework for the development of AI algorithms and fostering the AI cooperation ecosystem (CGTN, 2020).…”