Presentation short abstract

As engagement with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has expanded, environmental standards have been widely perceived as a barrier to participation, particularly for wealthier states. Our analyses illustrate how such states have engaged more deeply following China’s ‘Green BRI’ shift in 2017.

Presentation long abstract

As engagement with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has expanded globally, concerns about environmental standards have been widely perceived as a barrier to participation for states with more stringent environmental policies (Coenen et al., 2021). In line with political ecology approaches, we interpret this dynamic not simply as a matter of preference, but as rooted in unequal power and uneven capacities to reject environmentally risky infrastructure – i.e., wealthier states can more easily forgo BRI opportunities on environmental grounds. Since 2017, China has articulated a ‘Green BRI’ strategy that promotes a supposedly greener approach to infrastructure projects, potentially reducing the barrier for more environmentally stringent host states. Building on debates over whether the Green BRI represents a substantive shift or is merely greenwashing, this paper empirically examines whether the strategy has reshaped global engagement patterns, particularly by deepening participation among environmentally stringent host states. Leveraging a novel dataset on host states’ BRI engagement, we analyse the relationship between national environmental standards and BRI engagement before and after 2017. Our findings show that, post-2017, states with more stringent environmental standards engage more deeply, indicating successful reduction of this barrier. Case studies of states that increased engagement after 2017 further illustrate how environmental standards and the Green BRI shift have shaped engagement. Our systematic evaluation demonstrates that the Green BRI is shaped by varying power relations with host states, providing new insights into its implications for global environmental governance and the future trajectory of the initiative.