The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of China's most ambitious efforts to expand its growing influence in international trade and development. Its geopolitical motivations tend to get more attention, in line with the alarming narratives about China's growing material capabilities, perceived dissatisfaction with the status quo arrangements in the regional and global order, and increasing anxiety in the West, especially in the United States, about the dangers of an imminent power transition amidst an intensifying US-China competition. It is in this context that this co-edited book, part of Routledge's Frontiers of Political Economy series, provides a refreshing and important analysis on the origins, purpose and impact of the BRI. The findings focus exclusively on China's relations with sub-regional Southeast Asia through the BRI framework. The book debunks many of the hyperbolic assessments about the BRI and shifts the attention and empirical analysis to domestic politics and considerations. In so doing, it uncovers a wealth of information regarding sub-regional Southeast Asia's receptivity to and interest in the BRI. The analysis points to how the numerous BRI projects reflect the developmental needs, interests and priorities of countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) framework, as well as China's lesser-developed areas like Yunnan and Guangxi.
The book's contextualization of China's actual economic influence in sub-regional Southeast Asia further reveals how and why regional economic integration and cooperation processes are unfolding. In the case study chapters, the book offers rich and detailed insights into some of the key bilateral economic interactions, as well as the challenges of China's engagement in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. For instance, growing concerns over debt-trap diplomacy and the lack of stringent oversight of the BRI projects’ environmental impact are often met with local pushbacks to China's initiatives and can, at times, even lead to renegotiations. As the authors note, “the utility of BRI-related projects and investments should always be at the centre when agreeing on infrastructure investment, but at the same time, it may also remind the government in Beijing that domestic political developments within participating countries should be considered additional risk factors in their lending policy” (p. 9). In the book's empirical analyses in chapters three and four, growing concerns over energy investment and demand, for example, provide the basis for reorienting some of the BRI projects to support innovative, low-emission and energy-efficient ones and renewable sources. In addition, the book also delves into China's BRI projects with Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. In each of these three case studies, the contributing authors further the co-editors’ overall framing of the book's argument, focusing on the domestic drivers for the BRI collaborations and the measurable impact such projects are having on local economies. In almost all cases, the economic impact – from connecting farms to markets or new economic corridors through improved infrastructure to the supply of reliable and consistent source of electrical power – is notable and provides a much-needed boost in these Southeast Asian countries’ infrastructure development.
The book uniquely links regional economic cooperative frameworks like the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) and Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism (LMC) to the BRI. Critiquing them in tandem generates more coherence and helps external observers better understand the extent of China's regional economic influence. The next logical step for the co-editors would be to broaden the scope and provide a cross-comparison of China's BRI impact in sub-regional Southeast Asia with other parts of the world, like Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific islands, Central and South America and Europe. Additionally, the editors might also consider how China's economic largesse compares with other regional competitors like Japan, India, the European Union and the US. Providing such a comparison in the empirical analysis would enable those interested to better assess China's actual impact and influence at the local and regional levels. Similarly, comparing China's BRI figures with data from the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the World Bank, USAID and/or the International Monetary Fund would also be crucial to further contextualize the impact of foreign assistance from a variety of sources. These next steps would set up an important sequel to an ambitious project, but doing so would further strengthen this book's impact and argument and increase its overall explanatory power and value. If what the editors observe in sub-regional Southeast Asia can also be seen in other parts of the world, then the nuanced assessment derived from such patterns of behaviour would provide a critical counterargument to the prevailing critical voices and deepening scepticism of China's BRI and geopolitical ambitions more broadly.
