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Searching for a “China model” along the Belt and Road
Author(s) -
Skidmore David
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
asian politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1943-0787
pISSN - 1943-0779
DOI - 10.1111/aspp.12589
Subject(s) - china , nexus (standard) , politics , foreign direct investment , order (exchange) , investment (military) , economic system , business , commodity , economics , international trade , debt , state (computer science) , international economics , political science , market economy , finance , macroeconomics , engineering , law , embedded system , algorithm , computer science
While China's own leadership offers their country's economic success as a model for other developing countries, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is instead promoting a very different path of development. Differences between China's own experience and the BRI path are stark in terms of the timing of infrastructure development, the sources of financing, the political conditions surrounding infrastructure investment and the roles of manufacturing versus commodity exports. Yet the BRI does propagate a particular fragment of China's recent experience: a debt‐development complex featuring crony‐like relationships among policy banks, state‐owned construction firms and local/foreign governments. This nexus of interests promotes a risky and often unsustainable development path. The gap between promise and reality limits China's ability to promote a Sino‐centric world order while also suggesting the need for scholars to more carefully examine the social transmission belts through which great powers export fragments of their own political and economic structures abroad.