Dominance or Development - What's at The End of PRC's New Silk Road - SCMP PDF

8/23/2019 Dominance or development? What’s at the end of China’s New Silk Road?
| South China Morning Post
SCMP.COM
Diplomacy
Dominance or development? What’s

at the end of China’s New Silk Road?
Beijing’s global infrastructure drive will be in the spotlight this
week when dozens of heads of state converge on the
Chinese capital for the second Belt and Road Forum
In the rst of a four-part series, we look at what might be the
real purpose of the massive programme
Topic | Belt and Road: 2019 Forum
Shi Jiangtao
Sarah Zheng
Published: 6:00am, 22 Apr, 2019
https://www.scmp.com/print/news/china/diplomacy/article/3007059/dominance-or-development-whats-end-chinas-new-silk-road 1/14
8/23/2019 Dominance or development? What’s at the end of China’s New Silk Road? | South China Morning Post
By the entrance of the main o ce in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville Special Economic

Zone is a crimson message from the country’s prime minister, Hun Sen.
Written in owing Khmer and Mandarin is a quote from the China-friendly

strongman likening the area to “my own son”.
On the opposite wall is a quote from Chinese President Xi Jinping hailing the zone
– one of the rst industrial estates in Asia funded and jointly run by Chinese
investors – as a landmark model of cooperation.
The zone is home to dozens of Chinese rms and is just 12km (7 miles) from
Cambodia’s only deep-sea port, a facility that was developed with the help of
China’s strategic rival, Japan.
The port, which handles about 70 per cent of Cambodian imports and exports, is a
major link in a chain of some 600 facilities in 200 countries connected by China’s
“Belt and Road Initiative [1]”.
China launched the scheme in 2015 to spur trade along ancient Silk Road land and
sea routes linked to Asia, Africa and Europe.
Cambodia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world and has
become a haven for Chinese investors, with capital in ows reaching an estimated
US$3.9 billion last year.
Cambodia’s only deep-sea port was developed with the help of China’s strategic rival, Japan. Photo:
Shutterstock
The growth in investment in places like Cambodia comes despite mounting

criticism and resistance, and underlines Beijing’s accelerated push for the world’s
most ambitious project amid China’s economic wrangling with the United States
and European powers and their unfolding geopolitical rivalry.
Those ambitions will be in the spotlight this week when 37 heads of state,
including Hun Sen and Russian President Vladimir Putin, head to Beijing for the
Belt and Road Forum, the second of its kind in less than two years. But neither
India nor the US will send senior representatives.
‘Cooperate or stop criticising’, China’s foreign minister says
[2]
Observers say the event is aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences, with
Beijing keen to showcase the popularity of Xi’s foreign policy and gauge the level
of interest and commitment among participants in the project.
But there is also expected to be much questioning and scrutiny of China’s global
ambitions. While Beijing wants to convince the world of its peaceful rise and its
desire to promote regional connectivity and growth in Eurasia and Africa by using
government capital, state-owned enterprises and projects abroad, it still has a lot
of explaining to do.
“A signi cant part of the Belt and Road Initiative is projecting the rejuvenation of
China inherent in Xi’s ‘Chinese dream’,” Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China
Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said.
“It is not about solving the world’s problems but about making Xi’s China appear
great and successful.”
The big picture
When Xi rst proposed the belt and road six years ago, he said it was a vision for
greater connectivity and trade along an economic land belt and maritime routes
linking China to Africa and the Mediterranean, reminiscent of the ancient Silk
Road centuries earlier.
In a speech at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University in September 2013, Xi said the

idea would be to “build a community of interests” by deepening economic ties,
cooperation and development among Eurasian countries.
Two years later, he said the initiative would be “a real chorus comprising all
countries along the routes, not a solo for China itself”.
At the rst Belt and Road Forum in 2017 [3], billed as the country’s most important
diplomatic event of the year, Xi waxed poetically about the ancient Silk Road
routes as a “great heritage of human civilisation”. He spoke about how its modern
version, the belt and road programme, would complement di erent countries’
development strategies rather than “reinvent the wheel”. At the time, more than
100 countries and international organisations had signalled they were on board
with the plan.
The approach is not entirely new and is often compared to the US’ post-second
world war Marshall Plan and Japan’s “ ying geese” development strategy in
Southeast Asia in the 1990s.
Over the years, the initiative has evolved and deepened into a much more
comprehensive strategy, becoming the centrepiece of Xi’s economic and foreign
policy, which is aimed at transforming Beijing into an international leader on a par
with Washington and reclaiming its greatness on the world stage. The initiative
was also enshrined in the Communist Party’s constitution in 2017 along with Xi’s
eponymous political thinking.
According to Beijing’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi [4], a Politburo member and
former foreign minister, more than 120 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin
America and the Caribbean have signed on to the plan.
Diplomats, o cials and observers say that the evolution of the initiative, which is
still to be thoroughly deliberated and clari ed, coincides with a fast-changing
global economic and political order, including the rise of China, further
integration of Europe and Asia, and the decline of American hegemony.
China asks Britain for help to boost image of belt and road
[5]
Moritz Pieper, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Salford in

Britain, said that no matter what the main driving force behind the initiative might
be, China is growing as a power in Eurasia.
“Regardless of whether one subscribes to the view that it [the belt and road] is
driven rst and foremost by Chinese domestic economic motivations such as
industrial excess capacity or to the view that China aims to ‘go out’ and make a
distinctive contribution to globalisation on Chinese terms, there can be no doubt
that China has arisen as a Eurasian power as a precondition for global ‘great
power’ status,” Pieper said.
There can be no doubt

that China has arisen as

a Eurasian power
Moritz Pieper, lecturer
in international
relations
Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia programme at the Stimson Centre think tank
in Washington, said the belt and road served both economic and strategic goals.
“It helps China to absorb domestic economic overcapacity; expand foreign

markets and trade relations; consolidate political relations with recipient
countries; further military ties and security in uence; and eventually all these
serve to shape a di erent order with China playing a much more prominent role,”
she said.
Tilting East
As China has continued to expand its presence in some of the world’s busiest and
strategically important trade arteries in the past two years, the US, Japan,
Germany, Russia, India, Australia and other governments have fretted that Beijing
is gaining economic and political in uence at their expense.
Many of the countries that have signed up for the initiative are less-developed
economies in Africa and the Asia-Paci c as well as struggling parts of Europe, and
“in today’s global economic conditions, money talks”, according to Gal Luft, co-
director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
“Many developing countries as well as struggling European economies like Italy

and Greece are in nancial dire straits,” Luft said.
“The IMF and the World Bank are no longer viewed as the salvation. China is the
only country that is willing to o er tangible resources and with almost no strings
attached. Washington, on the other hand, is all threats and criticisms and very low
on actual deliverables.”
Italy signs up for belt and road infrastructure forum in China
[6]
Joshua Meservey, an expert on Africa and the Middle East at the Heritage
Foundation in Washington, said that Beijing aimed to translate its in uence into
something bigger.
“I think Beijing does see Africa [and other underdeveloped continents] as very
important to its overall foreign policy goals, which are intimately linked to its
domestic policy goals of maintaining its rule,” he said.
“The Chinese Communist Party wants the world to adopt its model of internet
governance and sovereignty. But what they’re really talking about is the
government’s ability to control and censor and repress the internet as CCP does in
mainland China … It is just one example of how they explicitly promote the
illiberal global norms, especially among developing countries. Developing
countries are very much the junior partners to China and so are somewhat at
China’s mercy on these questions.”
Suspicions of Chinese geostrategic intentions have seen other countries invest

more deeply in their rival investment or connectivity initiatives: the European
Union moved to expand the bloc’s Europe-Asia connectivity plan, Russia pushed
forward the Eurasian Economic Union, and the United States led the creation of an
Indo-Paci c infrastructure investment partnership with Australia and Japan,
which India was in talks to join.
China and Japan are vying for in uence in the Cambodian city of Sihanoukville. Photo: Alamy
Even in Cambodia, China has a erce competitor: Japan, which is vigorously vying
for in uence in the once sleepy seaside city of Sihanoukville and across the
underdeveloped nation. Japan is Cambodia’s second-biggest overseas investor,
with US$889 million invested in eight major projects, according to the Council for
the Development of Cambodia.
Chansok Lak, lecturer and researcher at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said
a marked increase in Japanese investment in Cambodia since 2017 might re ect
Tokyo’s e orts to counterbalance Chinese in uence in the country.
Many researchers say that the increasing integration of Europe and Asia looks set
to reshape the global economic and political order, replacing the dominating
transatlantic routes in world trade.
According to Nicolas Moes at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, Eurasia trade

in goods, which peaked at US$1.8 trillion in 2013, is consistently more than double
the transatlantic trade in the past decade.
Switzerland to sign belt and road deal during President Ueli

Maurer’s China trip
[7]
Bruno Macaes, a former Europe minister in Portugal, said that trade between
Europe and Asia vastly exceeded transatlantic and transpaci c trade.
The world’s political and economic centre of gravity is shifting from West to East,
claimed Macaes, the author of The Dawn of Eurasia and Belt and Road: A Chinese
World Order, both published in 2018, with the emergence of a Eurasian century in
the midst of a fast-changing world order.
According to a report by Dutch multinational bank ING last year, trade between
Asia and Europe (excluding trade between EU countries) accounted for 28 per cent
of world trade. Making trade ows easier between countries along the belt and
road corridors, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and
Southeast Asia, could boost international trade by as much as 12 per cent.
Many researchers say that the increasing integration of Europe and Asia looks set to reshape the global
economic and political order. Photo: Sarah Zheng
However, many critics, especially political elites in the United States and its allies,
fear not only that the belt and road projects are poor quality Trojan horses and
“debt traps” but that Xi is playing a long game to challenge the existing Western-
centric trade and governance systems.
In recent months, the initiative has seen several strikes against it, as Washington
leads the charge in condemning the programme as “predatory, debt trap”
diplomacy and part of Beijing’s broader national defence strategy. US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo [8] lashed out at China last month for funding ports in Africa
and the Asia-Paci c “not because they want to be good shipbuilders and stewards
of the waterways, but rather they have a state national security element attached
to each and every one of them”.
In April last year, a nearly united front from the European Union condemned the
belt and road for hampering free trade, giving an unfair advantage to Chinese
companies — mostly state-subsidised enterprises — and pursuing “domestic
political goals”.
The initiative has also seen a series of setbacks and perceived failures, with the
Chinese operational takeover of a Chinese-built Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, the
suspension and renegotiation of a billion-dollar railway in Malaysia, and the
reassessment of projects and debt in the Maldives, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
‘Multinational lenders to blame’ for belt and road partners’ debts
[9]
Analysts say that Beijing must heed concerns from other countries and deal with
growing criticism and resistance to enlist wider support and ensure the success of
the initiative.
Meservey, of the Heritage Foundation, said that diplomats, economists and think
tanks around the world were having a heated debate about the belt and road and
the implications of Beijing’s perceived promotion of its illiberal global norms.
“China is increasingly trying to export a speci c governance and economic model

that is inimical to US interests. That manifests in foreign policy through this
ambition to return China to its rightful place as a global superpower and at the
centre of a new global order. The Chinese Communist Party believes that that is the
best way to achieve its ultimate ambition, which is the longevity of its regime,” he
said.
Former German vice-chancellor and foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel was also
explicit. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February last year, he said
China was developing a comprehensive systemic alternative to the Western model
that was not founded on freedom, democracy and individual human rights.
Pushback
There are also concerns on the ground in places like Sihanoukville and the
surrounding province. Along with a slew of visible Chinese investments supported
by Phnom Penh in the area – including ashy hotels and casinos, where locals
cannot legally gamble – there has been growing resistance from residents fearful
their formerly sleepy seaside community is being “sold out” by a China-friendly
Cambodian government. Hun Sen clari ed in March that he would “not allow
China to occupy Cambodia”.
Chinese nationals make up 30 per cent of the Sihanoukville population, a

Cambodian government o cial said, contributing to skyrocketing rental prices,
which jumped ve to 10 times in recent years. Newly constructed projects
appeared to operate with little nancial oversight and insu cient public
infrastructure meant raw sewage was being dumped in the sea and street, and
garbage left in the open for days or weeks, activists said.
“The number of Chinese new arrivals to the city, both tourists and migrants,
continues to spike remarkably,” Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, founder of the
environmental non-pro t Mother Nature Cambodia, said. “This is cause of much
concern to Cambodians, as they fear that the city will become a de facto Chinese
enclave in the not-too-distant future.”
This new casino in Sihanoukville is one of many ashy Chinese investments in Cambodia. Photo: The
Washington Post
Beijing has consistently pushed back against criticisms of the overall initiative,
denying it has used the belt and road as a vehicle to gain political in uence.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month the scheme was “absolutely not a debt
trap” but one that would bene t populations around the world. “It’s never a
geopolitical tool, but an opportunity for many countries to develop together.”
The o cial belt and road website demands English translations refer only to it as
an “initiative”, forbidding use of “strategy”, “project”, “programme”, “agenda”,
or other related terms to describe the scheme.
Malaysia to go ahead with China-backed East Coast Rail link
[10]
George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, said the
belt and road was unquestionably China’s answer or alternative to the so-called
neo-liberal international and economic nancial order.
But he said he did not believe China was trying to create a set of its own rules or
even a new international order for the moment.
“China’s aim is not to upset the global order [from which it would su er] but to
mould it more towards its own interests and rules of conduct. These things are a
positive, but we should be cognisant that it [the belt and road] is in e ect on the
other side of a global development curtain that is descending on the global system,
with for example, the US, India, Japan and Australia on the other side in Asia, and
the EU in Europe,” he said.
China’s aim is not to

upset the global order
but to mould it more
towards its own
interests
George Magnus,
research associate at
Oxford University’s
China Centre
Luft, of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, said that Beijing’s trade
and infrastructure blitz was apparently aimed at expanding China’s sphere of
in uence and claiming the moral high ground by o ering a development blueprint
as well as showing political and nancial capability to match its ambitions.
The belt and road “should not be looked at merely as a set of lines on a map but
rather as the organising principle behind China’s grand strategy for the 21st
century,” he said.
“China is the only country today that o ers a blueprint for global development and
also the tools for its execution. It is easy to criticise the plan and point out dangers
and de ciencies but the question is who else is o ering solutions? And who else is
willing to put resources behind them?
“With a third of humanity still lacking access to basic infrastructure, including

electricity, those who oppose infrastructure development on any ground are
condemning the poorest people of the world to eternal poverty. This is immoral.”
The world was more likely to become multipolar than seeing the return of
bipolarity, with China on par with the US as dominating powers, he said.
“One lesson from that old world is that great power alliances were solidi ed with
royal marriages. Today it is transboundary infrastructure that solidi es relations.
China understands that infrastructure is the connective tissue of its future sphere
of in uence. Pipelines, rail and motorways are the royal marriages of our time.”
Additional reporting by Keegan Elmer and Jane Cai
Source URL:
https://scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3007059/dominance-or-
development-whats-end-chinas-new-silk-road
Links
[1] https://www.scmp.com/topics/belt-and-road-initiative
[2] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3006893/cooperate-
or-stop-criticising-chinas-foreign-minister-wang-yi
[3] https://www.scmp.com/topics/belt-and-road-2017-summit
[4] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3003966/chinas-top-
diplomat-says-40-state-leaders-will-attend-belt-and
[5] https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3006915/china-asks-
britain-help-boost-image-belt-and-road-initiative
[6] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2189332/italy-signs-
belt-and-road-infrastructure-summit-china
[7] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3006438/swiss-belt-
and-road-deal-be-signed-during-president-ueli
[8] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3003767/chinas-
island-building-and-belt-and-road-initiative-are-part
[9] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2189336/china-says-
multinational-lenders-are-blame-debts-belt-and-road
[10] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/3005831/malaysia-
decide-today-stalled-china-backed-east-coast-rail

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8/23/2019 Dominance or development? What’s at the end of China’s New Silk Road?

| South China Morning Post

Dominance or development? What’s

By the entrance of the main o ce in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville Special Economic

Written in owing Khmer and Mandarin is a quote from the China-friendly

The growth in investment in places like Cambodia comes despite mounting

‘Cooperate or stop criticising’, China’s foreign minister says

The big picture

In a speech at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University in September 2013, Xi said the

Moritz Pieper, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Salford in

There can be no doubt

that China has arisen as

“It helps China to absorb domestic economic overcapacity; expand foreign

“Many developing countries as well as struggling European economies like Italy

Italy signs up for belt and road infrastructure forum in China

Suspicions of Chinese geostrategic intentions have seen other countries invest

According to Nicolas Moes at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, Eurasia trade

Switzerland to sign belt and road deal during President Ueli

‘Multinational lenders to blame’ for belt and road partners’ debts

“China is increasingly trying to export a speci c governance and economic model

Chinese nationals make up 30 per cent of the Sihanoukville population, a

Malaysia to go ahead with China-backed East Coast Rail link

China’s aim is not to

“With a third of humanity still lacking access to basic infrastructure, including

Additional reporting by Keegan Elmer and Jane Cai

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