China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Strategic and Economic Impacts on Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Eastern Europe
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Book Description
This edited volume presents a trans-disciplinary and multifaceted assessment of the strategic and economic impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on three regions, namely Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Eastern Europe.
The contributions to this book demonstrate the requirement of a more realistic view concerning the anticipated economic benefits of the New Silk Road. The contributors critique the strategic effects of China’s opaque long-term grand strategy on the regional and global political order. Specific countries that are covered are Finland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Poland, and Thailand. Additionally, case studies from South Asia and Africa, notably India and Ethiopia, enable insightful comparisons.
Encouraging readers to critically challenge mainstream interpretations of the aims and impacts of the BRI, this book should interest academics and students from various disciplines including Political Science, International Relations, Political Geography, Sociology, Economics, International Development, and Chinese Studies.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Making Analytic Sense of the Belt and Road Initiative: A Plea for Multi- and Trans-Disciplinary Approaches and Eclecticism
Alfred Gerstl and Ute Wallenböck
Chapter 2: The Belt and Road Initiative Post-April 2019: Plus Ca Change!
Vijay K. Nambiar
Chapter 3: Thoughts on Appropriate Approaches to Studying BRI’s Actual Impacts and Limits
Yu-Wen Chen
Chapter 4: The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and Its Impact on Democratization and De-Democratization Processes
Wolfram Schaffar
Chapter 5: China’s Faltering Normative Power Drive in Kazakhstan
Gaziza Shakhanova and Jeremy Garlick
Chapter 6: Malaysia and China's Belt and Road Initiative: A Triology of Commitment Problem, Diplomacy, and Strategic Foreign Policy
Farizal Mohd Razalli
Chapter 7: Chinese Grand Strategy and the Belt and Road Initiative: The case of Southeast Asia
Tanguy Struye de Swielande and Kimberly Orinx
Chapter 8: The BRI, Logistics, and Global Infrastructure: New World Order, the Game of Go, and the Dispositif of Shi
Joyce C. H. Liu
Chapter 9: China and the USA in Central Asia: Competing Actors with Different Goals?
Alica Kizeková
Chapter 10: Rail Development Potential in Asia in the Frame of the Belt and Road Initiative: What Market?
Frédéric Lasserre, Linyan Huang, and Eric Mottet
Chapter 11: From Railway Dreams to Reality Check: Achievements and Challenges of Sino-Polish Relations at the Local Level – The Case of Łódźkie–Sichuan Partnership
Bartosz Kowalski
Chapter 12: Economic (Policy) Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative for Central, East, and Southeast Europe
Julia Gruebler and Robert Stehrer
Editor(s)
Biography
Alfred Gerstl is a specialist on International Relations in Southeast Asia. Since 2019 he holds a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc (Czech Republic).
Ute Wallenböck is a postdoctoral researcher for the EU-funded "Sinophone Borderlands – Interaction at the Edges" project at Palacký University Olomouc, and assistant professor for Chinese Studies at Masaryk University, Brno, both in the Czech Republic.