China and the World

Chinese grand infrastructure projects in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) program are instrumental for Myanmar to bridge the voluminous bottlenecks in transportation and energy infrastructure essential for economic development. However, the high project costs as well as the project design and execution have raised skepticism over their benefits for Myanmar, in particular the economic viability and disruptive impacts for the local ecology and culture. The military coup in February 2021 in Myanmar deepened the skepticism to the Chinese and even outright hostilities to some projects. This paper reviews the broader context of the local receptions to the Chinese investment, drawing upon in-depth fieldwork in Myanmar, and suggests the potentials of leveraging Hong Kong’s managerial and professional experience in enhancing responsible investment in the BRI.

In recent years, a civilizational perspective as a part of geopolitical analysis is deployed to fuel geopolitical concern. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been viewed as a case of the clash of civilizations between the West and China. This paper scrutinizes the civilization-based geopolitical approach and analysis. It tests the “civilizational-clash” thesis beyond the Sinic–West relations through the cases of the Sinic–Islamic and Sinic–Hindu relations. An examination and comparison of different civilizational responses to the BRI helps us to develop a critical perspective to investigate the problems in the BRI, in particular the potential civilizational fault-lines along the BRI route. The paper rejects the simplistic version of civilization-based geopolitical analysis as insufficient, problematic, and even misleading. It has sought to refine and nurture a more sophisticated and rigorous approach to the complex connection between the BRI and civilization.

This paper looks into perceptions and images that India and China have constructed over the span of civilizational, colonial and post-colonial periods by analyzing some of the socio-cultural, politico-economic and civilizational undercurrents. It argues that not having a correct understanding of these has resulted in misunderstandings and misperceptions. It also argues that the equilibrium that existed between India and China during the last three decades has been lost due to the balance of power favoring China; the Galwan military standoff that ended up in fatalities on both sides was just one of the manifestations of this. It concludes that both need to find a new equilibrium, which may take longer than the expected, however, policy recalibration through pragmatic constructivism could be a good beginning.

China–Ethiopia economic cooperation in the period of 2000–2020 is marked by the convergence between the industrial policy of Ethiopia, the orientations of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), and the infrastructure development strategy which is the cornerstone of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China, the largest foreign investor in Ethiopia during this period, has had a major role in terms of investment and financing in the energy sector and the transportation infrastructure: Addis Ababa Airport, roads, railway, seaport terminal, and gas pipeline.

The flagship project — the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway — connecting Addis Ababa to Djibouti City and Djibouti’s Doraleh Container Terminal, inaugurated in 2018, provided landlocked Ethiopia with a good connection between the hinterland and the seaport: the economic corridor accounts for more than 95% of Ethiopia’s foreign trade.

The development of Ethiopian Industrial Parks on the model of Chinese Special Economic Zones (SEZs) was the second pillar of the strategy of development of an export-oriented manufacturing sector. Chinese companies operating in Ethiopian Industrial Parks in the textile and leather industries have been pioneering this activity contributing to Ethiopia’s participation in the Global Value Chains (GVCs).

Ethiopian government is also planning the development of agro-industrial parks specialized in added-value agricultural products such as coffee or cut flowers exported to Europe via Addis Ababa Airport and Ethiopian Airlines Cargo.

Ethiopia’s main challenges in that direction are the necessity to go up the value chain to further penetrate European markets and, most likely, to identify the products or services which could be integrated into the African markets in the new context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement that entered into force in January 2021.

The Laos National Railway network is a milestone in the country’s transportation history. From the Chinese perspective, the China–Laos Economic Corridor (CLEC) is a vital sub-component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). From the Laotian perspective, the Southeast Asian country intends to transform from a land-locked country (the only country within ASEAN or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) into a land-linked country with Chinese equipment and infrastructure inputs. Through the railway system, Laos will be connected to maritime ports in China, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, potentially benefiting its tourism industry, workforce mobility, land sales, services/retail outlets and intra- as well as extra-ASEAN trade and investments. Laos has proven to be the most politically stable, regime-reliable, perhaps complementary entity that has a stake in the success of the pan-Asian railway for the sake of its own economic development at the moment. At least, it does not require complicated diplomatic efforts, unlike the cases of Vietnam and Myanmar at this point of time. Thus, it may turn out to be a win–win situation for both the Laotians and the Chinese.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed an age of expedition frenzy that had spread east as the Western explorers diverted their interest in Central Asia across the continent to Chinese Xinjiang, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia. To facilitate the planning and logistics of their expedition activities, Western explorers selected specific cities situated on the Chinese northern and western frontiers that were geographically suited to their needs and interests, as well as to serve as their temporary basecamps throughout the expedition period. Kalgan, the name by which the city of Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province is most known to Westerners, is a city with close to 2,000 years of history as a frontier trade zone since the Eastern Han Dynasty, emerged from these expedition activities as an embodiment of full-fledged urban modernity in the early 20th century. Railroads, postal services, telegram lines, banking systems, and customs were all established as necessary infrastructures, turning this historical frontier city into a practical “pivot” from which the expedition operations were managed, relayed, and communicated with the explorers’ respective home nations. Through photos, writings, and other types of housekeeping documents (i.e., cheques, telegrams, and balance sheets), this paper aims to examine the cultural memory of Kalgan against the modern Western expedition activities that had directly, or indirectly, stimulated the modernization of a frontier city, one that had historically been a gateway city where the Chinese heartland meets the outside world.