Paper short abstract:

The paper looks at the under-investigated case of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia to assess whether new partnerships in investment and productive cooperation would enable virtuous links between private interests and public mandates for sustainable and inclusive long-term growth.

Paper long abstract:

The ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ (SREB) - part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was launched in 2013 promising to revive the economic connectivity epitomised by the Silk Road. Although reports have tried to document the BRI’s dynamics, evidence on its dynamics and impacts is still very anecdotal and contradictory. In the last years, under the BRI umbrella, China and Uzbekistan strengthened their economic cooperation by signing over 100 agreements worth around 20 billion USD on infrastructure, energy and manufacturing. Uzbekistan has become one of the major beneficiaries of the BRI, and China is its primary trade partner. Uzbekistan is Central Asia’s most populous country; it has recently adopted an outward-looking strategy after years of autarky; it is also landlocked, so Chinese-built road and rail links to ports could be especially transformative. However, there are also fears that the BRI is nothing more than China's new 'debt-trap' diplomacy in relation to developing countries. Secondary data are limited and scattered and do not allow disaggregation by sectors, so we have very limited knowledge of the BRI. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of how BRI-related projects and investments operate on the ground. Combining the literature on state capitalism and GVCs/GPNs, and complementing secondary data and unstructured interviews, it investigates whether it enables virtuous links between private interests and public mandates for inclusive growth. FInally, it will reflect on the national social and economic risks attached to the BRI financial and productive flows.

Paper short abstract:

Our paper unsettles Eurocentric narratives in development studies that assume transfers from Global North to Global South. Through a focus on Chinese investments in Europe, we investigate the political implications of a “developing country” intervening in the heart of the “developed world”.

Paper long abstract:

Our paper unsettles Eurocentric narratives in development studies that assume policy and ideational transfers from Global North to Global South. Through a focus on Chinese investments in Europe, we investigate the political implications of a “developing country” intervening economically in the heart of the “developed world”.

We synthesise findings from a collaborative research program (https://www.york.ac.uk/politics/research/current-projects/globaldevelopmentfutures/china/#tab-1) to reflect on the ways in which growing Chinese investments in Europe shape the liberal internationalism that provide the institutional scaffolding for international development. Staging a conversation between scholarship in global development (Horner and Hume, 2019; Roy and Hickey, forthcoming) with international relations (Jones and Zeng 2019; de Graaff, ten Brink, and Parmar 2020), we argue that Chinese investments do not necessarily undermine liberal internationalism. Rather, the political implications of Chinese investments in Europe are shaped by state-society relations within China and the European countries receiving Chinese investments.

The paper elaborates four themes, viz: (i) The interface between actors in states and societies that shape overseas investments in China; (ii) The relations between the Chinese state and businesses and their counterparts in select European countries; (iii) The interactions between the Chinese state and regional groupings in Europe; and (iv) The impact of Chinese investments in third countries on its relations with European states.

The synthesis of findings presented in our paper will also introduce workshop participants to an edited volume (in progress) on the implications of Chinese investments in Europe for the Liberal International Order.

Paper short abstract:

The objective of this paper is to study the monetary mechanisms and the financial risks involved in both the Chinese Development Bank (CDB) and the Panda bond financing of the Belt \& Road Initiative (BRI), especially when real investment project financing is involved.

Paper long abstract:

The objective of this paper is to study the monetary mechanisms and the financial risks involved in both the Chinese Development Bank (CDB) and the Panda bond financing of the Belt \& Road Initiative (BRI), especially when real investment project financing is involved. Further, we analyze the balance of payment consequences for both China and the host country of the execution of the real investment projects, distinguishing between Chinese, foreign non-Chinese, and local suppliers. Finally, we analyze the balance of payment consequences for the host country, and the exchange rate risk and balance of payment crisis risk faced by the Panda bonds, differentiating between the real investment project being export-enhancing or domestic-oriented (not generating foreign currency). The policy conclusions are that the CDB may reduce its financial risks by acting as an underwriter of the Panda bonds, but it may also have to act as a dealer of last resort if there are balance of payment crises, and sharp depreciation of the exchange rates, in the host countries. To reduce both the exchange rate risk and balance of payment risk of the Panda bonds, it is important that the real investment projects are export-enhancing for the host country, and that the execution of the real investment projects uses local suppliers, based in the host country. The internationalization of the Renminbi, and the cooperation with the banking systems of the host countries, is key for reducing foreign exchange reserves outflows.

Paper short abstract:

A lack of public data on Chinese official lending has fostered speculation and sensationalism and existing attempts to bridge this gap vary in their coverage and precision. This paper analyses common challenges of such efforts and presents our own approach to tracking Chinese loans across Eurasia.

Paper long abstract:

All indications suggest that official Chinese lending to Europe and the former Soviet Union has significantly increased over the past fifteen years. However, unlike traditional creditors such as the IMF, Chinese lenders do not make loan data publicly available, and we therefore lack an understanding of the true extent and nature of China’s Eurasian lending activities. This opacity has helped make Chinese loans highly controversial with claims of “hidden debt” and “debt trap diplomacy”. Attempting to address this gap, one existing project - Aid Data, hosted by William and Mary College - tracks Chinese loans globally, but its coverage ends in 2014 and it has been criticised for a number of inaccuracies. More reliable databases have been produced on a regional basis- for Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific. However, Europe and the former Soviet Union, lying largely outside the traditional scope of development studies, have received far less attention and we still lack a comprehensive source on these regions.

Here we present the methodological approach underlying our nascent China-Eurasia Loans Database project. The database will track official loans from China to 46 states in Europe and the former Soviet Union over the period 2005-2020. We will analyse common problems associated with data gathering on Chinese loans and the ways in which inaccuracies can seriously undermine our understanding of China’s role as a development financier. We then set out our efforts to overcome such problems via our methodological handbook, covering five stages of data collection and verification: recruitment and training of research assistants, gathering, collating, cleaning, and triangulating media and government sources in English, Chinese and local languages, and in country verification of results.