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1 Introduction and overview
Christian Ploberger
A constant challenge in grasping the character of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) exists: does BRI signify a development strategy in support of regional cooperation within different regional settings in which China’s government has specific interests, a geo-economic strategy, or a national development strategy to support development within some of China’s remote provinces and borderland areas, with an international focus added? Those are the most relevant topics related to China’s BRI, and this book tries to address them by focusing on one specific regional setting: the Mekong region. There are no doubts that China’s central government has a vested interest in the Mekong region and the sub-regional cooperation processes within it, as does the provincial leadership of Yunnan and Guangxi. By ‘sub-regional setting’, we refer to the integration process based on the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).1 Within this context, the focus is to what extent BRI-related investment will generate benefits for the member countries and support for the established sub-regional integration dynamic within the Mekong region.
It is obvious that China’s interest in sub-regional Southeast Asia goes back decades, if not centuries, as old trade routes, such as a section of the famous Silk Road, connected imperial China with Southeast Asia. In more recent times, the record of participating in the sub-regional integration process is rather mixed, as the strong interest in participating in the GMS process articulated at the provincial level, within China’s Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, was only recently matched by central government interests in Beijing; with the announcement of the BRI, there has been some stronger commitment from China’s central leadership with regard to participating in the GMS process, which began in the early 1990s. It is worth remembering that at the beginning of the GMS process back in 1992, not much was expected from this process, but this perception began to change in the early 2000s. Yet, the provincial leadership in Yunnan was quite eager to participate in that process because of its close geographic proximity and the associated expectation of supporting provincial development through closer economic cooperation and integration with the GMS economies. However, it should be remembered that, up to the late 1990s, the interconnectivity between Yunnan and sub-regional Southeast Asia was severely limited, and not just because of underdeveloped road and train infrastructure, but also because of the closure of national borders, because offering strong support for facilitating Yunnan’s integration with sub-regional Southeast Asia was not identified by the central government as a priority target in the early stages of China’s reform and opening process. Yet, from the provincial perspective, things looked a bit different. Indeed, as early as the mid-1980s, local officials began urging for an opening of the borders to facilitate cross-border trade between Yunnan and Southeast Asia. At that time, Yunnan, like Xinjiang in the far west, was described as a remote, ‘dead-end’, a situation that contributed to the low level of development the province continued to experience while many other provinces were benefiting from China’s ongoing reform and opening process. It was only a short time after the BRI became a central topic in Chinese politics that China’s central government finally became more responsive to demands from Yunnan’s provincial government’s insistence on facilitating closer cooperation between Yunnan and sub-regional integration processes in the Mekong region. Indeed, within the context of BRI, Yunnan was now famously identified as a ‘bridge head’. However, even this description can be traced back to earlier discussions in Yunnan during the 1990s. After all, from a provincial and geographic perspective, Yunnan was closer to Southeast Asia’s markets than to the markets of China’s east coast. Even so, only with the BRI taking shape and developing into a major policy strategy did a change of perception with regard to Yunnan’s role within China’s leadership take place, as the central government now became more enthusiastic about the potential that Yunnan’s geographic location could offer for stronger China-Southeast Asia and even China-South Asia cooperation and infrastructure integration. While in the context of the current discussion within the BRI framework Yunnan is strongly associated with a ‘bridge’ function between China and Southeast Asia, Guangxi’s provincial leadership, too, entertains a similar perspective for its own role within the BRI. In Guangxi’s case, the argument presented is that it provides a linkage for parts of eastern China with Southeast Asia, emphasising that from a development zone perspective, it integrates the Greater Bay Area with the BRI’s Southeast Asia economic corridor development. While not covered in this book, BRI offers a similar provincial development prospect for Xinjiang province with a similar role for supporting China-Central Asia cooperation. Hence, ignoring the domestic focus from a Chinese perspective when assessing the BRI frameworks will miss a crucial character of BRI. This change of perspective from the central Chinese government, with regard to specific provincial demands, also offers a good example of how BRI can support domestic demands for provincial development among some of China’s lesser-developed provinces, a perspective that needs to be brought back into focus, since there is a tendency for international observations to focus almost exclusively on the international impacts BRI is generating.
From a national perspective, deeper cooperation with sub-regional Southeast Asia countries and the GMS process would support China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) relations as well. This was also recognised within the BRI framework and in the document that identifies the various underlying strategies BRI is built on: ‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ (Vision and Actions 2015). With regard to cooperation within the Mekong region’s sub-regional integration process, the document states that BRI offers strong support for cooperation in the GMS process, as this process is of strategic importance for China’s relations with Southeast and South Asia (Vision and Actions 2015). Guangsheng, for example, points out that China’s engagement with the GMS process was strengthened through the BRI by further reinforcement of China’s relations with the countries of the sub-region, which represents an important task within the BRI framework; the instigation of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) process offers another indication within this context (Guangsheng 2016).
While the origin of the LMC goes back to a Thai proposal, which will be discussed more in Ngampramuan’s chapter, the LMC process took shape when China’s leadership started to support it. One can argue that Thailand does not have the political or economic resources required for such a process to be successful. The LMC process was rather recently set up (23 March 2016), when compared with the long-established GMS process, but offers another indication of the strategic relevance of the Mekong’s sub-regional cooperation within China’s BRI. The LMC founding document, the Sanya Declaration (2016), declares that development represents the top priority for the member countries but also identifies regional cooperation and connectivity as important tasks, describing the LMC as a new approach to sub-regional cooperation. However, if one reads relevant GMS documents regarding development and cooperation, the similarities between the two integration processes cannot be overlooked, and indeed, one could argue that the LMC offers another impetus within the longer-established GMS process. Consequently, the LMC and GMS processes are nearly identical, with similar aims in support of sub-regional integration dynamics; the biggest difference one could argue is that GMS was founded and is supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which is strongly supported by Japan, whereas LMC is supported primarily by Beijing.
Despite the improvements that have been undertaken since the beginning of the GMS process, interconnectivity and infrastructure gaps still present a challenge for development within Southeast Asia’s sub-regional integration process. It is a challenge recognised by the ADB itself, stating that Asian countries will continue to face a significant infrastructure challenge for a considerable time, citing an infrastructure investment gap of 2.4% of the projected regional GDP for the 2016–2020 period (ADB 2017). Therefore, any further contribution towards reducing this infrastructure gap is welcome. Indeed, China’s approach within the LMC framework, to focus on so-called ‘early harvest’ projects, projects that can be rather swiftly implemented, may also offer additional vigour for the GMS process itself. This focus offers another insight into the strategic importance that sub-regional Southeast Asia has gained for China, while a stronger engagement also supports provincial development for at least two of China’s provinces, as mentioned above. There is no doubt that such strong cooperation at the sub-regional level will also generate additional benefits at the regional, ASEAN, level.
In addition to addressing the impact BRI-related investments have on China’s relations with sub-regional Southeast Asia, the specific focus of the book will also add further insight into the extent to which BRI-related investment will contribute to the development process of the recipient countries and how much it will support existing sub-regional integration processes, such as the GMS/LMC processes. At the same time, we should remember that China’s strong emphasis on closer economic cooperation with sub-regional Southeast Asia can also be interpreted from another angle, as support for domestic development, since closer cooperation will bring benefits to provincial development within Yunnan and Guangxi. Therefore, not only are we reminded of the strong domestic aspect of the BRI, but the interconnectivity also highlights the complex character of BRI and the challenge of how to characterise it—it may be a domestic development strategy, a regional integration strategy in support of China’s political-economic position within a particular regional context, or an umbrella for addressing a wide range of domestic and international policy issues the Chinese government is already engaged with. A closer evaluation of China’s BRI and its many characteristics will form the first step in our enquiry.
1.1 Taking stock of the Belt and Road Initiative
The origin of the BRI is widely attributed to comments made by President Xi Jinping in September 2013, during a state visit to Kazakhstan. Indeed, on that occasion, he proposed closer economic cooperation with Central Asian countries by forming a new economic belt along the historic Silk Road. He stated that it was a foreign policy priority for China to develop a close and cooperative relationship with the countries of Central Asia (Xi Jinping 2013a). By applying the historical metaphor of the Silk Road and by emphasising connectivity, President Xi put renewed emphasis on the loose regional cooperation already existing between Central Asian countries and China, thus supporting a regional integration dynamic. In a similar way, by again placing renewed emphasis on a specific regional integration process, Xi’s address to the Indonesian parliament in October 2013 referred to the possibility of a Maritime Silk Road. This time, the regional context on which he was focusing was Southeast Asia, or, more specifically, China’s relationship with ASEAN. In his address to the Indonesian parliament, the overwhelming emphasis was on strengthening China-Indonesia and China-ASEAN relations by means of supporting ASEAN internal development and its role as a regional organisation, so China would offer closer economic and political cooperation (Xi Jinping 2013b). Even before Xi’s speech at the Indonesian parliament, Prime Minister Li Keqiang had already made a reference to the Maritime Silk Road at the 10th China-ASEAN Expo in September of the same year. He, too, mentioned BRI in the context of addressing regional cooperation, such as the ten-year-old China-ASEAN strategic partnership, emphasising that China and ASEAN were facing similar development challenges and so were natural partners, consequently stressing further close cooperation (Li Keqiang 2013).
Another important step in outlining the character of BRI occurred in 2015 when China’s National Development and Reform Council (NDRC) published the official document mentioned above—‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ (Vision and Actions 2015)—which had the State Council’s authorisation and outlined BRI in more detail. The document included a comprehensive evaluation of the various regional and development focuses inherent in BRI. The main aspects emphasised are centred on five features, namely policy coordination, facilitating connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people connection. It further stated that BRI was an indication that China was willing to take more international responsibility in accordance with its capabilities. A hint at acting according to its great-power status, such as supporting the building of a Eurasian land bridge, provided the geographic dimension of BRI and further underlined the focus of this statement. In the document, much emphasis is placed on portraying the BRI as an open, flexible, and pluralist example of cooperation, in which the economic development strategies of the different countries will be recognised. It is further emphasised that China would support different regional integration processes within different regional settings; also, established mechanisms, as in the case of the Southeast Asia GMS, would be utilised in support of regional integration processes. This is an indication that BRI, although offering a new framework, cannot be interpreted as a completely novel undertaking, as in several cases, it aims to build on existing policy strategies and well-established international relations. The comprehensive focus and the emphasis on supporting regional integration within different regional settings by investing in a modern infrastructure network is a unique position for China to take.
However, there is another characteristic of BRI that also builds on previous policy strategies: its domestic development focus (from a Chinese perspective). Indeed, it is crucial to remember this strong domestic focus, especially since this aspect is often neglected when different aspects of the BRI are evaluated by international observers, for whom the overwhelming focus of discussion is on whether BRI indicates a geo-political strategy for gaining and amassing strategic influence in support of Chinese dominance (as realists may argue); as pointed out by Mearsheimer (2014), every great power’s ultimate goal is to maximise its share of world power, to gain dominance. Indeed, ignoring the strong domestic focus of BRI on addressing the existing development imbalance that exists between Chinese provinces would amount to a great misperception about the character of BRI (Ploberger 2020). He (2019, 186) also emphasises that, from a domestic perspective, mobilisation for BRI-related projects occurs at the provincial level, which certainly supports the development of left-behind provinces; provinces which were less able of participating in China’s reform and opening process, represent an original and ongoing focus for BRI.
It is crucial to remember that the Chinese government’s overall focus is on domestic development, as securing domestic development and, with it, political and economic stability will strengthen the Communist Party’s hold on power. Within the NDRC publication, there is an extended emphasis on advancing the infrastructure integration between China’s inland regions to support the links between the eastern and western areas of China, with the added aim of propelling regional development among China’s provinces. In addition to outlining such a general emphasis for internal integration and development support, there are also specific focuses mentioned, for instance, to accelerate cooperation between the upper and middle sections of the Yangtze River, with Chengdu and Chongqing at the centre, or to build Xi’an into a centre of reform and a primary example for opening up China’s interior. In doing so, it may also indicate some references to Xi’an’s famous past; along with all its relevance to China’s history, Xi’an (the old Chang’an) was historically recognised as the beginning and the end of the ancient Silk Road. Yet, such a focus on supporting a closer integration of China’s different regions is not unique either, as a previous attempt at doing so in the early 2000s, the so-called Western Development...
