The Railroad Economic Belt: Grand strategy, economic statecraft, and a new type of international relations

Abstract

China’s grand strategy is evolving towards greater activism under Xi Jinping – from ‘keeping a low profile’ to ‘striving for achievement’. New initiatives such as forging ‘a new type of international relations’, ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’, and the Belt and Road Initiative have become marked features of the ‘Xi-change’ in China’s grand strategy. From an economic statecraft perspective, this article hypothesises that the Xi-change led to a power centralisation in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Railroad Economic Belt. To support its geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives, the Chinese state has replicated the domestic state-industrial complex. In the context of the Jakarta–Bandung High-speed Rail Corridor, the domestic roles of the National Development and Reform Commission and the China Railway Corporation have been internationalised to ensure the globalisation of China’s high-speed rail industry could be conducted in a concerted and choreographed fashion.

Chinese financial statecraft in Southeast Asia: an analysis of China’s infrastructure provision in Malaysia

“…Critically, Malaysia's deficient financial eco-system and overly conservative macroprudential policy have joined force to hinder the country's infrastructure investment and development. This twin dilemma is observed just as well in other major Southeast Asian economies such as Indonesia (Yan, 2020) and the Philippines (Camba, 2020b) that have experienced similarly harrowing memories about the AFC. Moreover, such structural financial constraints are seemingly locking other Southeast Asian economies including likely Thailand and Vietnam down in a middle-income trap (Khoo, Tsunekawa, & Kawano, 2017;Tran, 2013).…”

The belt and road initiative, joint intellectual capital development towards industry value added of a partner economy

“…At worst, the BRI project benefits China because it replicates its domestic economic models to exploit opportunities and needs. For instance, China has replicated its domestic system to the internationalisation process in the BRI projects in Indonesia in constructing roads and railways in a choreographed fashion that favours its economy (Yan, 2020). Our findings refute these assumptions because most arguments in the prior literature are opinionated or anecdotal at best.…”

When the state goes transnational: The political economy of China’s engagement with Indonesia

“…China's geopolitical ambition in overseas railway development is underpinned by several factors, ranging from the pursuit of political and economic cooperation, enhancement of inter-and intra-regional connectivity, to export of 'China Standard' in critical infrastructure and engineering systems (see, for example, Chan, 2016;Lampton et al, 2020;Liao and Katada, 2021;Yan, 2021). The Jakarta-Bandung HSR, courtesy of Indonesia's status as the largest economy (GDP of about USD1.2 trillion) as well as most populous country (close to 270 million people) in Southeast Asia, is thus a 'must-win' for a rising China.…”

“…Although there exist multiple interpretations on how the BRI is to be defined and operationalized, there is a consensus that the export of capital-intensive infrastructure constitutes a key component of the initiative (Camba, 2020; Rana and Ji, 2020; Yan, 2021; Liu et al, 2022). However, what exactly happens when Chinese firms carry out these projects overseas?…”