The Belt And Road Initiative In South South Cooperation

This book seeks to illuminate what China's Belt and Road initiative truly means for the global south, offering historical context and explaining the vision that the Chinese State has in coordinating actions in the territorial, political and economic spheres in a multilateral pretension. How does the BRI generate economic returns for China, and what are the political and economic impacts of the BRI? In this provocative and deeply researched new work, the authors provide a new framework for understanding the BRI, one which will be useful to scholars, policymakers and economists.

This book seeks to illuminate what China's Belt and Road initiative truly means for the global south, offering historical context and explaining the vision that the Chinese State has in coordinating actions in the territorial, political and economic spheres in a multilateral pretension. How does the BRI generate economic returns for China, and what are the political and economic impacts of the BRI? In this provocative and deeply researched new work, the authors provide a new framework for understanding the BRI, one which will be useful to scholars, policymakers and economists. Li Sheng is a professor of political economy and public policy and the associate dean of Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau. He received his master and PhD of economics from Universitaet Freiburg, Germany, after graduating from Peking University. His recent research focuses on international political economy. He has published over 60 research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals, among which 40 are published in journals listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index. He has published two monographs with Palgrave MacMillan, and another one is in press. Dmitri Felix do Nascimento is a post-doctoral Fellow of Department of Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau. He received his PhD in Political Sciences/International Relations from the University of Lisbon/Portugal. He has extensive publications on trade and politics of BRIC countries.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been an obscure concept, and it remains difficult to distinguish what BRI is and isn’t, making it difficult for many governments and global corporations to properly participate in it. I am delighted to present the opinions and perspectives of many eminent researchers, professors and experts from various countries on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The book contains 11 chapters which are written by distinguished researchers and practitioners from various parts of Asia. While these 11 chapters discuss the many characteristics of the BRI, including advantages and costs, they also convey the lessons that many other Southeast Asian countries have learned. Each chapter offers valueable lessons to the countries that have yet to participate in the initiatives.

The publication, prepared as a contribution to the BAPA+40 Conference delves into what the future of South-South cooperation holds for developing countries, and how it can be reenergized and revitalized as a unique area of development cooperation. Given the trajectory of South-South cooperation over the last 40 years, the way forward needs to be traced, particularly in important areas of work like regional cooperation and digital industrialization. Section 1 of the report looks at the evidence behind the so-called “rise of the South” to document the qualitative and quantitative changes observed in South-South cooperation over the past four decades, highlighting that, while South-South cooperation has intensified, its impact remains uneven and incomplete. Section 2 looks at South-South cooperation’s link to the means of implementation for the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly with respect to trade and development issues, drawing on an example addressing Sustainable Development Goal 7, to highlight how South-South cooperation can provide critical solutions to the South’s development challenges. Section 3 examines policy options in a number of domains that can help improve South-South cooperation, drawing from a wide range of UNCTAD experience. Section 4 looks at the new landscape of Southern development finance actors and how developing countries can draw on this new emerging source of South-South cooperation to finance connectivity, structural transformation and industrialization. Section 5 explores key and emerging areas for South-South cooperation, including regional cooperation, building productive capacity and responsible investment. Section 6 looks at best practices in South-South cooperation drawn from UNCTAD technical cooperation experiences. Section 7 looks at the role that South-South cooperation can play in light of new technologies, in particular related to so-called "Fourth Industrial Revolution" technologies.

As China and the U.S. increasingly compete for power in key areas of U.S. influence, great power conflict looms. Yet few studies have looked to the Middle East and Africa, regions of major political, economic, and military importance for both China and the U.S., to theorize how China competes in a changing world system. China's Rise in the Global South examines China's behavior as a rising power in two key Global South regions, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Dawn C. Murphy, drawing on extensive fieldwork and hundreds of interviews, compares and analyzes thirty years of China's interactions with these regions across a range of functional areas: political, economic, foreign aid, and military. From the Belt and Road initiative to the founding of new cooperation forums and special envoys, China's Rise in the Global South offers an in-depth look at China's foreign policy approach to the countries it considers its partners in South-South cooperation. Intervening in the emerging debate between liberals and realists about China's future as a great power, Murphy contends that China is constructing an alternate international order to interact with these regions, and this book provides policymakers and scholars of international relations with the tools to analyze it.

This timely book examines the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), assessing its effect on the international economic order and global governance more broadly. Through a variety of qualitative case studies, the book investigates the implementation of the BRI and evaluates its development outcomes both for China and the countries it interacts with under the initiative, along with its international implications.

2013 saw the launch of the largest, most influential investment initiative in recent memory: China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This globe-spanning strategy has reshaped local economies and regionals networks, and it has become a contested subject for scholars and practitioners alike. How should we make sense of the complex interactions that the BRI has enabled? Understanding these processes requires truly global perspectives alongside careful attention to the role that local actors play in giving shape to individual BRI projects. The contributions in this volume provide both 'big picture' assessments of China's role in regional and global interactions and detailed case studies that home in on the role agency plays in BRI dynamics. Written by leading area studies scholars with diverse disciplinary expertise, this book reveals how Chinese efforts to recalibrate the world are taken up, challenged, revamped, and reworked in diverse contexts around the world.

China’s emphasis on infrastructure development has received support from African leaders. Its focus on infrastructure development in Africa was endorsed by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between China and the African Union on 27 January 2015. The agreement outline plans for connecting African countries through transportation infrastructure projects, including modern highways, airports, and high speed railways. At the heart of Belt and Road Initiative lies the creation of an economic land belt that includes countries on the original Silk Road through Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, as well as a maritime “road” that links China’s port facilities with the African coast, pushing up through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. China has from the outset emphasised that the Belt and Road Initiative will be developed within the framework of the five principles. These entails mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; non-aggression; non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence. This volume provides an analysis of this stance by both African and Chinese scholars. Africa through its Agenda 2063 has been driving, among others, the re-industrialisation of its economies, improved connectivity and infrastructure development, diversification of energy sources, technology transfer and skills development. The Belt and Road Initiative provides an alternative path for Africa to realise some of these milestones.