Description
International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative investigates the most significant global‐scale international trade expansion and capital investment programme since the Second World War.
This book focusses on the multi-national perspectives of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to interrogate the Chinese government’s representation of it as a symbol of "peace, cooperation, development and mutual benefit." With specific focus on the interrelationship between geopolitics, infrastructure investments and urban regional development, the book reflects on 12 countries’ experiences in depth, including those of Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Ethiopia, specificly to their economic development levels, political systems, power dynamics and socio-environmental issues. The book clarifies and contributes new knowledge on the nature of BRI concerning its relationship to globalism, neo-colonialism, the notion of developed vs developing countries and their institutions and macro-micro benefits and impacts. In doing so, the book offers a balanced account of the antagonistic geo-political narrative of socio-political conflict and the collaborative framework of real socio-economic flows and development.
The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy-makers with an interest in the BRI and its impacts on politico-economic development and urban, regional and spatial systems in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
Table of Contents
SECTION I: Background
1. Re-imagining the Silk Road for the 21st century
SIDH SINTUSINGHA AND HAO WU
2. The BRI from within China: vision, rationale and the "corridors"
WENQI LIN, SHUO GONG, MENGHE WU AND HUI YI
3. The BRI from within China: mechanisms, institutions and media representations
BO QIN, WEI LIU AND YAN ZHANG
SECTION II: International context, analysis and outcome
4. Urban development challenges under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
MUHAMMAD IMRAN, MURAD ALI AND MUHAMMAD SALEEM JANJUA
5. Inter-continental transport networks and Asian Economic Corridor for the Korean Peninsula
HYUNG MIN KIM
6. Establishing the BRI in Thailand: contrasting "desire lines" in the delivery of two high-speed rail projects
SIDH SINTUSINGHA
7. Malaysia: chinese participation in infrastructure from contractor to conspirator?
TOONG KHUAN CHAN
8. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Cambodia
SUN SHENG HAN AND YMENG LIM
9. The production of megaprojects in Java: colonialism, nationalism, development centralisation vs decentralisation
EKA PERMANASARI AND SIDH SINTUSINGHA
10. The Belt and Road Initiative in Iran: urban-regional dialogue in two corridors and three cities
MORTEZA MIRGHOLAMI
11. The critical need for urban planning around Port Vila’s BRI projects
JENNIFER DAY
12. Ethiopia: the Addis Ababa–Djibouti railway
KELLY LEVIKER
13. Strengthening Brazil’s food system: can China’s Belt and Road help?
ADRIAN H. HEARN
14. Challenges and opportunities to port development with the BRI in Japan
ZHENJ IANG SHEN AND YAJ ING ZHANG
SECTION III: Comparative perspectives: a bottom-up approach
15. International perspectives of the BRI: new, unfolding globalisation
SIDH SINTUSINGHA AND HAO WU
