On China S Road

This book examines how China’s international political communication of the Belt and Road Initiative comprises narratives about infrastructure and the Silk Road. By carefully selecting infrastructure modalities and Silk Road representations, it is argued that China’s aesthetic production of the Belt and Road Initiative advances China’s image as an infrastructure and standards-setting power, conjures up a historical continuation of friendly and cooperative relations, and forges China’s identity as good neighbor, good friend, and good partner. Using a multiple-case study approach, this book analyses China’s communication of the Second Belt and Road Forum, the Alternative North-South Road in Kyrgyzstan, the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, and the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge. Detailed literary analyses of the Travels of Marco Polo and the Travels of Ibn Battutah further elucidate China’s selective uses of history. Chapters highlight spatial, temporal, political, economic, technological, and perceptual modalities in infrastructure narratives, and reveal the composition of Silk Road narratives, contributing to key debates about Chinese discourse, media strategy and infrastructure communication. China’s Communication of the Belt and Road Initiative will appeal to students and scholars of politics, international relations, communication, and Asian studies globally.

In 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced a campaign for national rejuvenation. The One Belt One Road initiative, or OBOR, has become the largest infrastructure program in history. Nearly every Chinese province, city, major business, bank, and university have been mobilized to serve it, spending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas building ports and railroads, laying fiber cables, and launching satellites. Using a trove of Chinese sources, author Eyck Freymann argues these infrastructure projects are a sideshow. OBOR is primarily a campaign to restore an ancient model in which foreign emissaries paid tribute to the Chinese emperor, offering gifts in exchange for political patronage. Xi sees himself as a sort of modern-day emperor, determined to restore China’s past greatness. Many experts assume that Xi’s nakedly neo-imperial scheme couldn’t possibly work. Freymann shows how wrong they are. China isn’t preying on victims, Freymann argues. It’s attracting willing partners—including Western allies—from Latin America to Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf. Even in countries where OBOR megaprojects fail, Freymann finds that political leaders still want closer ties with China. Freymann tells the monumental story of Xi’s project on the global stage. Drawing on primary documents in five languages, interviews with senior officials, and on-the-ground case studies from Malaysia to Greece, Russia to Iran, Freymann pulls back the veil of propaganda about OBOR, giving readers a page-turning world tour of the burgeoning Chinese empire, a guide for understanding China’s motives and tactics, and clear recommendations for how the West can compete.

This book views the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a bold and all-encompassing 21st century global effort by China, with unprecedented perspectives. The BRI could be summarised as a 'revitalization' of China's ancient land-based and maritime silk roads, but it should be noted that its impact on China and the world stands on the foundation of omnipresent economics and how China transforms its mindset in the 21st century.Though initiated by China, the BRI's implementation has been a many-to-many effort from the start. This multi-regional and multi-national effort is distinctly different from the one-to-many effort of the Marshall Plan. The two meaning-defining chapters of this book, 'Omnipresent Economics: The Belt and Road Initiative Underpinning' and 'Supercontinent, Neo-Renaissance and Cultural Communications: The Millennium Mindset Transformations Induced by the Belt and Road Initiative', have made it abundantly clear that the BRI discussions presented are unique.The discussions of this book could shed new light on the BRI, a long-term and profound initiative by China, which in today's global discussions and debates, are entirely confined to geopolitical and economics arenas.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), officially unveiled in 2013, is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign and economic policy initiative to achieve improved connectivity, regional cooperation, and economic development on a trans-continental scale. This book reviews the evolving BRI vision and offers a benefit-risk assessment of the BRI’s economic and geopolitical implications from the perspective of Asian stakeholder countries, using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Among the value added of the book is first an online perception survey of opinion leaders from Asian participating countries on various aspects of the initiative. To our best knowledge, the survey is the first of its kind. Second, the book presents the simulation results of a computable general equilibrium model of the world economy to estimate the potential macroeconomic impacts of the BRI as a whole and those of its constituent overland and maritime economic corridors. Third, the book makes ten key evidence-based policy recommendations on how to enhance the prospect of a successful and mutually beneficial BRI 2.0 to both China and stakeholder countries.

Silk Road was once the most important economic-cultural tie connecting the Eurasian countries before the rise of the West. In September 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the initiative to jointly build the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, which is abbreviated as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This book analyzes the BRI through the approach of political economy and establishes the analytic framework of BRI from historical and comparative perspectives. It clearly displays the strategic considerations, future vision, constructing framework, governmental actions, latest achievements, multiple opportunities and potential risks of BRI. As China's grand national development strategy and international cooperation initiative, the BRI will largely shape China's domestic and foreign policies in the Xi Jinping era. The book is the first academic monograph on the BRI and it enables readers to comprehensively understand this initiative and its implications to China, Eurasia and the world. Contents: Reflections on the Ancient Silk Road The "Modern Silk Road" between China and the Middle East Understanding China's Belt and Road Initiative in the New Era Cooperation Framework of Building the Belt and Road Development Opportunities of the Belt and Road Initiative Government Actions on Building the Belt and Road New Developments of Building the Belt and Road Risk Management in Building of the Belt and Road Readership: Academics, policy-makers, professionals, undergraduate and graduate students interested in China's Belt and Road Initiatives, China's domestic and foreign policies in Xi Jinping Era. Keywords: China;The Belt and Road Initiative;Silk Road;One Belt and One Road;Political Economy;EurasiaReview: Key Features: First monograph on China's Belt and Road Initiative Comprehensive and in-depth studies Rich first-hand materials

A prominent authority on China’s Belt and Road Initiative reveals the global risks lurking within Beijing’s project of the century China’s Belt and Road Initiative is the world’s most ambitious and misunderstood geoeconomic vision. To carry out President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign-policy effort, China promises to spend over one trillion dollars for new ports, railways, fiber-optic cables, power plants, and other connections. The plan touches more than one hundred and thirty countries and has expanded into the Arctic, cyberspace, and even outer space. Beijing says that it is promoting global development, but Washington warns that it is charting a path to global dominance. Taking readers on a journey to China’s projects in Asia, Europe, and Africa, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals how this grand vision is unfolding. As China pushes beyond its borders and deep into dangerous territory, it is repeating the mistakes of the great powers that came before it, Hillman argues. If China succeeds, it will remake the world and place itself at the center of everything. But Xi may be overreaching: all roads do not yet lead to Beijing.

Running 3,000 miles from the east-coast boomtown of Shanghai to the border of Kazakhstan in the north-west, Route 312 - China's 'Route 66' - is a road that Rob Gifford has always wanted to travel. Gifford's journey and his desire to get to the heart of this country make China Road an outstanding and funny travel narrative - part pilgrimage, part reportage - which illuminates a country on the move.

China's Belt and Road strategy is acknowledged to be the most ambitious geopolitical initiative of the age. Covering almost seventy countries by land and sea, it will affect every element of global society, from shipping to agriculture, digital economy to tourism, politics to culture. Most importantly, it symbolizes a new phase in China's ambitions as a superpower: to remake the world economy and crown Beijing as the new center of capitalism and globalization. Bruno Maçães traces this extraordinary initiative's history, highlighting its achievements to date, and its staggering complexity. He asks whether Belt and Road is about more than power projection and profit. Might it herald a new set of universal political values, to rival those of the West? Is it, in fact, the story of the century?