The Digital Silk Road and the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

The information and communications technology (ICT) sector has attracted growing interest among stakeholders in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese investors. A Digital Silk Road initiative within the BRI is growing, as countries are encouraged to work together on production and trade enabled by digital technologies. Digital connectivity and the emerging digital economy can have positive impacts on development, as has been demonstrated in some Chinese cities. However, it is difficult to tell whether the Chinese experience will be transferable. This article reviews what China has done in relation to the Digital Silk Road and the possible contributions made towards delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in investee countries. We conclude that while ICT investment has the transformative power to benefit the world's poorest, its benefits should not be overestimated. Enhancing activities in the virtual world need to be matched with those in the real world to deliver sustainable outcomes.

Pivot to the South: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through China's Belt and Road Initiative

“…More broadly, the statement also aligns to increasing development studies scholarship that examines the historical and contemporary Chinese‐UN relationship (Huang et al., 2019; Janus & Tang, 2020; Wang, 2018; Zhang, 2020a). And finally, the statement also speaks to a secondary strand of policy‐orientated development research that responds to ‘the remarkably little work examining this interrelationship [between the BRI and SDGs] in significant depth’ (Gong & Li, 2019; Gu et al., 2019; Gu & Qiu, 2019; Jiang, 2019; Kim, 2019; Sayed, 2019; Zhou, 2019).…”

“…Within the secondary strand of development scholarship examining BRI‐SDG integration at national and local scales, BRI‐SDG integration is also understood as an important opportunity for BRI host‐countries to achieve their own localised SDG agendas or national strategies (Gong & Li, 2019; Sayed, 2019; Zhou, 2019). In doing so, these scholars further point to the fact that BRI‐SDG integration also has potential normative policy implications.…”

“…BRI‐SDG convergence should also be situated within wider development studies scholarship that examines China's increasing cooperation with the UN (Huang et al., 2019; Wang, 2018; Zhang, 2020a), China's adoption of mainstream global development agendas (Alves & Lee, 2021) and ‘ideational convergence’ between Chinese and DAC donors through the SDGs (Janus & Tang, 2020). And finally, whilst not explicitly engaging with the scholarly convergence debate, BRI‐SDG convergence has also emerged within a separate strand of policy‐orientated development research situated at national or local scales (Gong & Li, 2019; Gu et al., 2019; Gu & Qiu, 2019; Jiang, 2019; Kim, 2019; Sayed, 2019; Zhou, 2019).…”

Feasibility of the Development of Green Economy: Dualities in Exogeneity and Endogeneity

“…In other words, the policy provides a solid base to trigger the function of "dynamic of time" in a positive direction that "rebuilds" the definition of boundary. According to the data, China Telecom Huawei signed a USD 182 millions deal for constructing the information and communications technology (ICT) networks, and Tanzania was upgraded from no internet application to world-class access, which has developed local ICTs and internet industries [23]. This shows that once digital media was built in African countries, it will narrow the gap of inequalities between Africa and elsewhere around the world.…”

The Cross-Sectoral Technological Interdependencies of Central and Eastern Europe in the Era of Industry 4.0 and Chinese Digital Silk Road

“…This was emphasized in the thirteenth 'Five-Year Plan' [Xinhua 2017]. The processes of servicification of manufacturing with ICT services can be considered an important element of the initiative [Brown 2017, Sen andBingqin 2019].…”