TY - JOUR
T1 - Unraveling the Belt and Road Initiative
T2 - China’s “Building Out” Strategy
AU - Gamso, Jonas
AU - Moffett, Michael H.
N1 - Funding Information:
Prior to China’s involvement, the project had been under consideration for decades, leading to several feasibility studies, including one financed by the Inter-American Development Bank. However, risk became a concern due to Ecuador’s financial and political situation and the 1987 eruption of the El Reventador volcano, which sits close to the site of the dam. These factors led the project to be shelved until 2008, when Rafael Correa’s government resumed the project as part of its effort to increase Ecuador’s utilization of hydroelectric power. After a feasibility study by the Italian power firm, Electroconsult, Ecuador, began negotiations with Sinohydro [].
Funding Information:
Earlier versions of this article were presented at meetings of the American Political Science Association, the International Studies Association, and the Midwest Political Science Association, as well as the Conference on Great Power Competition in the 21st Century at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The authors thank participants in those panels. The authors also thank Haley Burns, Kat Consador, Steve Juarez, June Obata, Sneha Pujani, Lily Sarvestani, Kaitlin Showers, and Rebecca Swyers for excellence research assistance. Finally, the authors thank the editor and reviewers for thoughtful comments and suggestions during the review process.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - Scholars and analysts have sought to clarify the Chinese Communist Party’s motives for carrying out the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a series of infrastructure investments in countries across the globe. While many emphasize Beijing’s geopolitical interests, this paper argues that the BRI should also be understood as a large-scale effort to create business activities for Chinese companies and workers outside of China. We define the contours of this “building out” strategy by analyzing the stages that typify BRI projects: project selection, project financing, project construction, and post-construction operation and management. Our analysis draws, in large part, on data that we have compiled from a sample of BRI projects. After showing macro-level trends in the data, we offer three in-depth case studies to clarify the underlying mechanisms at work. Our findings suggest that BRI projects are engineered to direct finance and construction bids to Chinese companies, which are typically state-owned.
AB - Scholars and analysts have sought to clarify the Chinese Communist Party’s motives for carrying out the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a series of infrastructure investments in countries across the globe. While many emphasize Beijing’s geopolitical interests, this paper argues that the BRI should also be understood as a large-scale effort to create business activities for Chinese companies and workers outside of China. We define the contours of this “building out” strategy by analyzing the stages that typify BRI projects: project selection, project financing, project construction, and post-construction operation and management. Our analysis draws, in large part, on data that we have compiled from a sample of BRI projects. After showing macro-level trends in the data, we offer three in-depth case studies to clarify the underlying mechanisms at work. Our findings suggest that BRI projects are engineered to direct finance and construction bids to Chinese companies, which are typically state-owned.
KW - Belt and Road Initiative
KW - Building out
KW - China
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140998094&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85140998094&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12140-022-09394-1
DO - 10.1007/s12140-022-09394-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85140998094
SN - 1096-6838
VL - 40
SP - 21
EP - 36
JO - East Asia
JF - East Asia
IS - 1
ER -