The BRI Is What Small States Make of It: Evaluating Kuwait's Engagement with China's Belt and Road Initiative

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 538-558
Author(s):  
Imad Mansour
Keyword(s):  
Small States ◽  
Financial Assets ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Governmental Agency ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Structural Relationships ◽  
Belt And Road

Kuwait's expanding engagement with China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) sheds light on its strategies to meet its socioeconomic needs and navigate the Gulf's adversarial politics. The BRI presents a good case study of how the Kuwaiti leadership evaluates the benefits of and dilemmas created by asymmetric structural relationships. This article thus explores how governmental agency in strategically managing massive financial assets complicates our understanding of the vulnerability of so-called small states.

The role of logistics in promoting Italian agribusiness: The Belt and Road Initiative case study

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 105560
Author(s):  
Fabio Carlucci ◽  
Carlo Corcione ◽  
Paolo Mazzocchi ◽  
Barbara Trincone
Keyword(s):  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
The Belt And Road

China’s Soft Power in Pakistan: The Representation of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor in Local Newspapers

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Zahid Shahab AHMED ◽  
Ahsan HANIF ◽  
Baogang HE
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
Newspaper Reporting ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Belt And Road

This article conducts a case study of China’s influence on Pakistan by collecting and analysing news coverage from two prominent English and Urdu newspapers in Pakistan for a five-year period between 2013 and 2018. It compares the changes in newspaper reporting before and after the launch of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2015. Analysis has shown a significant increase in positive reporting on the CPEC and China. The case of Pakistan is representative of its recognition of China’s soft power in a developing country, thus offering a new perspective on China’s goodwill vis-à-vis the Belt and Road Initiative.

Making Infrastructure ‘Visible’ in Environmental Law: The Belt and Road Initiative and Climate Change Friction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Sanja Bogojević ◽  
Mimi Zou
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Infrastructure Project ◽  
The Belt And Road ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Infrastructure is often viewed through global and promotional lenses, particularly its role in creating market connectivity. However, infrastructure is heavily dependent on and constitutive of local spaces, where ‘frictions’, or disputes, emerge. Drawing on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a case study, we examine in detail two cases of BRI-related climate change litigation – one in Pakistan, and one in Kenya – that shed light on the frictions arising from what is deemed the most significant transnational infrastructure project of our time. In doing so, this study demonstrates how infrastructure can be made more visible in environmental law and how environmental law itself provides an important mechanism for stabilizing friction in the places where infrastructure is located.

scholarly journals International Law as Hedging: Perspectives from Secondary Authoritarian States

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 237-241
Author(s):  
Trang (Mae) Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Small States ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
The Belt And Road

Tom Ginsburg's important article comes at a critical time. The COVID-19 crisis has spurred heated debates about political regimes vis-à-vis countries’ bureaucratic capacity. Political regime type is the core independent variable in Ginsburg's conceptualization of authoritarian international law—a global projection of authoritarian states’ domestic politics. This essay echoes Ginsburg's insightful observation but complicates it by shifting the focus to the less-known perspectives of secondary authoritarian countries. I use a matrix case study of two smaller states, Vietnam and Cambodia, on two prominent issues, the South China Sea (SCS) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to demonstrate small states’ effort to use international law to “hedge” big powers. As the case studies show, small authoritarian states, not unlike other small states, prefer a pluralist vision of international law, even if they may at times embrace the alternative model offered by big authoritarian powers. These states thus have an important, perhaps unexpected, role to play in preserving the pluralist international legal order and mitigating the hegemonic tendencies of authoritarian international law.

Economic Implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): The Case of Bangladesh

2019 ◽  
Vol 02 (04) ◽  
pp. 1950021
Author(s):  
Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir ◽  
Md. Zahidur Rahman
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Production Network ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Growth Outcomes ◽  
Transfer Of Technology ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
New Form ◽  
Political Settlement

The paper provides an alternative framework to identify the compulsions and contradictions arising out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as voluminous literature, stemming from the perspectives of realism and liberalism are either marred in assertive dogmatization or excessive apprehensions or non-feasible (lack of) solutions. Taking into such inadequacies of existing approaches into account, the paper also attempts to chalk out elements for a new form of cooperation under the BRI. Using Bangladesh as a case study, it suggests for integration of production network, transfer of technology and sharing of risk of capital as necessary condition as well as alignment of domestic political settlement and normative legitimacy as sufficient condition to achieve mutual stability and growth outcomes.

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