China's One Belt One Road Initiative

Tai Wei Lim, Henry Hing Lee Chan;Katherine Hui-Yi Tseng;Wen Xin Lim

• Publisher: ICP
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781783269310
• Topic: Scienze biologiche
• Subtopic: Scienza generale

Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Silk Road Economic Belt component of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative at Kazakhstan in 2013. OBOR is a development strategy and framework that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries primarily in Eurasia. It consists of two main components, the land-based "Silk Road Economic Belt" (SREB) and ocean-going "Maritime Silk Road" (MSR). This book studies the equilibrium or balance between overland and maritime trade routes of OBOR.

This book has two major sections. The interpretive section examines contemporary media narratives related to the OBOR initiative and how contemporary commentators appropriate narratives about historical events related to the maritime Silk Road to interpret current policy agendas and legitimize diplomatic or economic exchanges. In terms of institutional studies, the chapters related to Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will look at the issues facing the Bank in its quest in forming a new world platform for multilateral development financing.

The other section, the empirical case study of the publication highlights the fact that Euro-China High Speed Rail (HSR) and Central Asia-China HSR are not viable at the moment as passenger volume is not sufficient to justify the HSR line. This section examines the overland route of the OBOR and looks at recent Chinese HSR history and conventional sub-high speed rail technology development, and identifies technical & economic criteria determining the appropriate technology for a certain line. The chapter in this section will use the developed criteria to analyze the various rail linkage projects currently under study in the OBOR framework, highlight the economic, bureaucratic and geo-political challenges that these projects likely face and lay down conditions that will determine the outcome of these projects.

Section E

Region Specific Section — Country Case Studies

Chapter 14

One Belt One Road, China and Europe: Economic Strategy and Pragmatic Economies

Winglok HUNG

Introduction

This chapter aims to explain “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) with the use of Professor Yan Xuetong’s analytical framework of international system. The central question of this chapter is “Why is Europe more important than other regions in China’s OBOR economic strategy?” In this first part I explain my conception and understanding of OBOR. OBOR is a new economic strategy. In the remaining parts, I continue to examine China’s economic strategies and relations with Europe under the framework of OBOR. As OBOR is fundamentally different from an American-led private investment and trade liberalization since the Second World War, China’s OBOR attempts to construct a new international system after the global financial crisis in 2008. In the conclusion, I return to the same puzzle of why Europe is important in China’s OBOR strategy to establish a new international order.

On 7 September 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping first proposed the idea to build a Silk Road Economic Belt between China and Central Asia at the Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan.¹ A month later, the idea of the 21st century Maritime Silk Road was advocated during China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Indonesia. In the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the strategies of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road were confirmed.² In December 2013, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, mentioned that the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road aimed to develop long-term strategic objectives, directions and framework with China’s periphery neighbors in the next 5–10 years in an interview with the Chinese official newspaper People’s Daily.³

“One Belt One Road” is still an ongoing project. It is possible that this strategy will evolve because of changing international political and economic circumstances. Meanwhile, it seems that different people perceive this strategy very differently. For example, some academicians may perceive OBOR as China’s new economic paradigm that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among different countries in the world. Some foreign government officials may perceive OBOR as China’s strategy to start a discriminatory trade and investment system exclusively with emerging countries.⁴ It was even found that Chinese media reports contradicted each other. For instance, China Review News (

) articulated that China should first enlarge its influence in the Southeast Asia region under OBOR while Xinhua News (

) suggested that China should focus more on One Belt rather than One Road as it is expected to face opposition from Association of southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.⁵ However, I do not agree with the view that China’s OBOR attempts to exclude developed countries, such as countries in Europe. This chapter aims to argue that Europe is vital in China’s OBOR strategic plan. More details will be discussed in the following section.

Literature review of OBOR

Since the “One Belt One Road” was confirmed in late 2013, there has been a dearth of academic reports, especially in the English language on the topic of “One Belt One Road”. When the term “One Belt One Road” was searched in the document title box with the term “China” via ProQuest search engine, only two scholarly works were found.⁶ However, when the term “New Silk Road” was used for searching, 1,857 results of scholarly publications were found. Apparently, English literature preferred the name “New Silk Road” rather than “One Belt One Road” for discussion. For example, Chris Devonshire-Ellis recently published a book titled China’s New Economic Silk Road: The Great Eurasian Game & The String of Pearls. In addition, there are other journal articles with the title of “New Silk Road”.⁷

There is a further challenge in conducting this literature review. “One Belt One Road” actually refers to two concepts “The Silk Road Economic Belt” (One Belt) and “The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road” (One Road). Theoretically, it is possible for China to perform well in One Belt but fail in One Road. Therefore, the general description on the topic of “China’s New Silk Road” used in the literature might not always be discussing the two concepts separately.⁸ Without detailed clarification, it will be difficult for us to review and explain arguments from the English literature. By contrast, China’s scholarly work has relatively clearer classification of two separate subjects. There are books and journal articles on “The Silk Road Economic Belt”,⁹ “The 21st century Maritime Silk Road”¹⁰ and the whole OBOR project.¹¹ To facilitate discussion, I will review the literature regarding themes and arguments on OBOR rather than focus on the written language of the publication.

First, some papers generally lack a clear definition of “One Belt One Road”. These papers might be considered good research articles in their sub-fields but possibly did not have a substantial connection with China’s OBOR. For example, one academic journal had recently published two special issues on the topic “New Silk Road Project” in mid-2015.¹² A few papers were based on the conference presentation held in Macau in June 2013.¹³ Serious readers may be uncertain of whether the ‘new’ OBOR strategy is similar to the “old” China’s foreign policy in the different explanations and interpretations of the Silk Road. For example, the “New Silk Road” project is regarded as “massive trade and infrastructure networks which would foster closer economic ties between East Asia and Europe, and promote economic cooperation among most of the countries in the two continents”.¹⁴ What is the meaning of “economic cooperation”? Are there any similarities between the existing bilateral trade agreements and OBOR? Also, shall we include Japan, Russia or Mongolia in the discussion of “East Asia”? If so, why did Japan appear to distance itself from OBOR while Russia, South Korea and Mongolia joined Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as founding members? This tendency to discuss OBOR may cause further confusion to both academic and non-academic scholars.

Furthermore, how OBOR will affect China’s current economic relations with other countries is uncertain. This approach critically examined China’s foreign relations and its domestic tension. For example, China’s bilateral relations with its neighboring countries such as India and Turkey have been comprehensively studied.¹⁵ Scholars analyzed the domestic ethnic tension and social development in Xinjiang. Research on the social development in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, studied from 1999 to 2009, also showed that Uyghurs are not necessary involved in the policy-making process.¹⁶ Nevertheless, the papers did not explicitly present a clear correlation between China’s foreign relations and domestic conflicts with the exact plans or practices of OBOR. It seems unclear how China’s Xinjiang ethnic riots in 2009 will affect China’s economic strategy in 2015 and how China’s OBOR will also affect its economic strategy with India, Russia or Turkey.

Second, most researchers focus on China’s attempt to enforce a greater political (or geopolitical) relationship with emerging countries in OBOR. This branch of literature often links up with China’s political and military power in the world. In the Blue Book of Asia-Pacific, published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, it was suggested that China’s growing emphasis to build a good relationship with Central Asian and South Asian countries is in order to balance the US’s and possibly Russia’s influence in Central Asi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• About the Contributors
• Section A: Introduction
• Section B: The History of Zheng He (Cheng Ho) and the Maritime Silk Road
• Section C: The Maritime Silk Road
• Section D: The Overland Silk Road
• Section E: Region Specific Section — Country Case Studies
• Section F: Conclusion
• Index