scholarly journals The Belt and Road Initiative: Maximizing benefits, managing risks—A computable general equilibrium approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongjoo Hahm ◽  
Selim Raihan

Using a Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, and China as the base for analytical comparison, this paper shows that there are significant economic benefits to China and the participating countries along all six Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) economic corridors. However, to maximize these benefits, the social and environmental risks need to be well managed. The analysis shows a clear sequencing in terms of priority corridors. Two corridors have minimal investments and immediate returns, two corridors have significant investments with huge returns, and two corridors have high investments with lower returns. Overall, the paper demonstrates that to ensure the sustainability of any BRI corridor development, there is a need to consider its costs and benefits from the economic, social and environmental perspectives.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-45
Author(s):  
Jin-Hui Li ◽  
Chol-Ju An ◽  
Gwang-Nam Rim

Purpose: This paper analyzes the impact of transport infrastructure on Gross Regional Products in Chinese provinces under the “Belt and Road Initiative”. Methods: The impact of the key elements of transport infrastructure on Gross Regional Products is analyzed based on the data related to development levels of transport infrastructure and economic development. Correlation and regression analyses were used for data analysis. Results: It is found that railways and highways, which are the key elements of transport infrastructure, have a strong correlation with Gross Regional Products, and their effects are diverse among provinces under study. Implications: The findings demonstrate the position and role of diverse infrastructural elements in enhancing the economic benefits of infrastructural investment and promoting economic growth. Thus, it is expected to facilitate decision-making related to infrastructural investment under the “Belt and Road Initiative”.


Author(s):  
Jianyu Chen ◽  
Wei Liu

Along with the acceleration of “One Belt and One Road” CSR progress, more Chinese companies possess adequate CSR performance capacity and conditions. In this chapter, first, the basic concept of CSR has been briefly introduced and the overviews are mainly stated including the concept, development, and current situation under the Chinese backdrop. Second, the current development of CSR, risk of the CSR, and CSR strategies of Chinese enterprises under the backdrop of Belt and Road Initiative will be introduced. Third, the responsibility of CSR of state-owned enterprises under the backdrop of Belt and Road Initiatives will be mentioned with main reference of the social responsibility reports of state-owned enterprises as well as news reports. Fourth, classic case (China Communications Construction) will be used to analyze the CSR of Chinese enterprises under the backdrop of Belt and Road Initiatives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
pp. 327-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhexin Zhang

Since its launch in late 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has achieved many tangible results that may have lasting effect on the social and economic development of host countries and on the geopolitical dynamics of the world. Its emergence in international political discourse is changing the basic thinking and logic of traditional geopolitical competition. While Western countries tend to interpret the BRI as part of China’s hidden geopolitical strategy to ultimately rule the world, Chinese and most developing nations see it as China’s international cooperation strategy to enhance global connectivity, communication and cooperation, so as to foster a more balanced and equitable world system. To maintain a favorable international environment for further progress of the BRI, China needs to better explain the details concerning the initiative as well as its role in the country’s grand strategy of peaceful development. Meanwhile, China must keep striving to match its words with its deeds in global arenas, so as to win more trust and support from the international community in jointly implementing the initiative.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-404
Author(s):  
SiuSue Mark ◽  
Indra Overland ◽  
Roman Vakulchuk

This article studies the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on economic actors in Myanmar. It hypothesizes that the BRI has strong transformative potential, because Chinese projects are likely to transform Myanmar’s economy on different scales and influence the allocation of economic benefits and losses for different actors. The study identifies economic actors in Myanmar who are likely to be most affected by BRI projects. It also discusses how BRI-related investments could affect the country’s complex conflict dynamics. The article concludes with policy recommendations for decision makers in Myanmar, China, and the international community for mitigating the BRI’s possible negative impacts. The analysis draws on secondary sources and primary data collection in the form of interviews with key actors in Hsipaw, Lashio, and Yangon, involved with and informed about the BRI in Myanmar at the local, regional, and national levels.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
Li Yan

Focusing on China’s languages’ status planning for “The Belt and Road Initiative”, this paper constructs a framework for China’s languages’ status planning goals and studies its application of Chinese and minority languages in the social context of “The Belt and Road Initiative” raised by China in 2013. The paper points out the focuses of Chinese and minority languages’ status planning in the form of both status policy planning and status cultivation planning and makes a detailed analysis from the ecology of languages paradigm. It is concluded that China’s languages’ status planning for “The Belt and Road Initiative” should focus on the international language spread of Chinese as second language, the inheritance of Chinese as heritage language, and language maintenance and language revival of the minorities, by providing different platforms for the languages to function complementarily at different levels. The paper also looks forward the application of ecology-of-language paradigm in China’s language planning would trend a sustainable road for language ecological crisis and human sustainable development in the construction of the Belt and Road for building a community with a shared future for mankind.


Subject Central Asian gains and risk from the Belt and Road Initiative Significance Central Asian states are a crucial part of the overland component of the Belt and Road Initiative that China is advancing to promote regional security as well as trade. They stand to gain from improved connectivity, but project funding largely consists of Chinese loans that they will have to repay, possibly before the economic benefits are apparent. Impacts Uzbekistan will assume an increasing role as a trade and energy hub. Changed atmospherics will allow Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to work together as the principal regional states. China will be sensitive to fears of 'colonialisation', hiring local workers and stressing the value of its production projects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 03 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050002
Author(s):  
Locknie Hsu

This article examines a number of trade and investment areas in which trust-building needs to occur between China and its ASEAN Belt and Road Initiative partners in order to better realize the economic benefits promised by the initiative. A number of economic goals of ASEAN converge with those of the BRI, such as those relating to building physical, regulatory and digital connectivity, and this convergence provides potential for joint economic growth and cooperation. Some of ASEAN’s urgent infrastructure needs, for instance, could be met through ASEAN-BRI collaboration. However, a number of issues which have arisen in BRI-related projects within and outside ASEAN need to be addressed in a convincing way, if ASEAN and China are to better achieve such economic goals. These include building trust by fostering confidence that the BRI brings domestic trade and investment benefits, good governance and financial and environmental sustainability, and in the newer field of digital connectivity, by ensuring meaningful dialogs and actions on the use of existing and emerging technology in the BRI.


2018 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 39-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yitzhak Shichor

Compared with other Chinese-proposed multilateral institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not yet fully institutionalized. Still, it has been enthusiastically welcomed by many Asian and African countries, though less so by Western ones, Japan, and Russia. This is not only because of the expected economic benefits being Asian- and African-centric, but perhaps more importantly, because of the BRI having potential to be an exceptional Eastern model that may become universal. Up to the recent times, the flow of religions, doctrines, ideas and ideologies has mainly been from the West to the East, often accompanied by Western colonialism. Now, if the BRI is successfully implemented, for the first time in history a model of Eastern origin may affect the West and the rest of world. Unlike national liberation movements which had achieved political but not economic independence, China’s BRI could facilitate an international liberation movement that helps Asian and African countries to achieve growth and development, and thereby become economically independent as well. The innovation of the BRI does not only lie in its direction of influence (from the East to the West), but also in that it will be accomplished in Chinese rather than Western ways. That, more than particular economic benefits, explains the BRI’s attraction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling Lu ◽  
Kai Fang ◽  
Chuan Ming Liu ◽  
Cheng Sun

Under the tide of global economic integration with aggravated environmental risks caused by intensive human activities, the spatial network correlation of environmental risks has become intensified. The close exchange of activities among the countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will especially feel this contagion of environmental risks. Given this situation, this article analyzes the environmental risk contagion relations among the BRI countries and the characteristics of their network structure by using social network analysis (SNA). A block model is used to analyze the spatial clustering characteristics of the environmental risk contagion. Specifically, the driving factors of environmental risk contagion are analyzed through the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) of SNA. The results of this article provide some references for the BRI to reduce the environmental risks and jointly control the environmental risk contagion, so as to assist in the promotion of a green silk road.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 215-222
Author(s):  
Anton Kalyuga

The article is part of the research related to the perception of the Belt and Road Initiative of the PRC in the Visegrad Group countries. It presents results of discourse analysis on perception of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Slovak Republic in government and expert circles and data from a sociological survey on the attitude of Slovaks to the Chinese initiative. The results show that the Slovak perception of the Belt and Road Initiative is pragmatic and focuses on possible economic benefits from participation in the initiative. The experts are not oblivious to the political and economic risks associated with China’s expanding influence in the region, which makes the Slovak discourse rather balanced and utilitarian. The Slovak expert discourse has been found to have a significant influence on the pragmatic sentiments in the Visegrad Group countries regarding the Belt and Road Initiative. The independent think tank of the Central European Institute for Asian Studies (CEIAS) plays a major role in the transmission of these ideas, producing a number of analytical reports and actively engaging researchers from the Visegrad Four countries in its work. As for the governmental discourse, the Chinese theme is present in it to a limited extent; in recent years there have been several cases that have divided the views of the ruling elite regarding Sino-Slovak relations. In general, these have concerned human rights issues and interaction with the Dalai Lama and the resulting problem of whether it is worth raising sensitive issues and criticising the PRC at the state level to the detriment of economic ties. In conclusion, the author describes the main trends and forecasts of the development of the Slovak discourse about the Chinese initiative.


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