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MayChina and Malaysia restarted the East Coast Railway Project before the second Beijing “Belt and Road” Forum held at the end of April 2019, that is a good sign. However, China made many major concessions for the reboot, raising concerns for the future of many similar projects. Undoubtedly, China will gain more political support for the Belt and Road through the resumption, but it may also enable more and more countries to follow the example, leaving China in a weaker position to stick to the original agreements.
China takes it for granted that the Belt and Road Initiative is just about business, which can be pushed forward smoothly one project after another in the spirit of pragmatism. Nevertheless, the reality is more complex. BRI seems to be purely economically concerned, and the Chinese government firmly believes so, but it is inevitably colored by geopolitical, cultural, historical and many other factors.
The Center for a New American Security recently released a report of Grading China’s Belt and Road, identified seven challenges created by Chinese investment after exploring 10 typical BRI cases, including erosion of national sovereignty, lack of transparency, unsustainable financial burdens, disengagement from local economic needs, geopolitical risks, negative environmental impacts, significant potential for corruption.
All these challenges are worrisome to other countries, especially the more China’s neighboring countries become dependent on Chinese economy, the less choice they will have but to consider how to better play the game of power. Although China doesn’t resort to forces (hard power), it doesn’t convince them with (soft power) either, which is precisely why some critics accuse China of abusing its “sharp power”. In particular, some neighbors have to ease their domestic dissatisfaction so as to avoid weakening the ruling foundation.
China take a similar approach to developing BRI projects just like what it have done in the early days of reform and opening-up. Many recipient countries are dictatorial or authoritarian regimes rampant with corruption, making good governance practices in Chinese invested projects nearly impossible. Whether it is “debt trap” or sovereign threat, or overcapacity and pollution shifting, all these negative opinions on BRI run rampant partly due to the political bias of the international public opinions but still a result of its own operation.
Belgium think tank Bruegel in an empirical analysis finds that the sentiment toward BRI has been generally positive. Africa and Central Asia are the regions with the most positive views, while South Asia with the most negative views, and Europe and the USA are divided. West media controlled by the US and European countries would probably like to see more problems coming up with BRI projects so they will seize any opportunity to hype up its negative impacts.
The Belt and Road Initiative is indeed a great plan, a major contribution of China to the world. Nonetheless, when a Chinese project goes global, Chinese government must learn how to adapt to the international public opinion instead of copy its own top-down publicity model at home.
Compared with existing multilateral institutions like AIIB, BRI is a concept short of transparency and clear definition, which makes other countries confused and concerned. According to Carnegie Beijing Center, after five years of development, many countries still have no clue what BRI is about. The Belt and Road seems like a basket that China wants to put everything into it.
They hope that BRI will somehow follow the path of AIIB with good governance and conform to international rules. Obviously, BRI and AIIB are far from that because they are in essence two different things with BRI the top design and a great initiative, AIIB a tool or means to serve the ultimate goal.
Tom Miller in his book China's Asian Dream: Quiet Empire Building along the New Silk Road argued that in the development of BRI, the more China emphasizes that it has no strategic ambitions but to seek for win-win cooperation with BRI countries, the deeper their doubts will be, and the more likely that they will believe BRI is just for China’s double-win. Unfortunately, the Belt and Road is so far a pie in the sky, and people even have no idea of how big it is. In this sense, China must send a clear and strong message about BRI and improve its international communication strategy in order to ensure a sustainable development of the initiative.
At the same time, the country’s international policy is always a mirror of its domestic politics, thus China has to consider how to address the problems caused by the state-owned enterprises and local governments. On the one hand, whether or not Chinese SOEs can behave themselves and perform well at abroad is crucial to the image of BRI. On the other hand, the fact that local governments simply label all investments as BRI projects will only limit the long-term development of BRI. Thus, Chinese leaders should consider how to integrate the domestic and international demands and speak with one voice.
The Belt and Road is a great project, to make the dream come true, China should not only have the capability of building infrastructures but be able to enhance its soft power. Instead of keeping a low profile, China has to make a loud sound smartly to reshape the international public opinion rather than passively bearing the ungrounded criticism.
What BRI needs is “smart power”. Chinese decision-makers should be backed up with more observation and research in order to make the Belt and Road right and well understood, thus accepted by other countries, only then can the great vision be turned into reality.
Ma Liang, Research Fellow of National Academy of Development and Strategy, Associate Professor of School of Public Administration, Renmin University of China
The original article first published at here
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