Chatham House Podcast - China and the Future of the International Order

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has attracted much fanfare, scepticism, and concern since its launch in 2013. The BRI generally focuses on infrastructure, energy, and transportation projects from Asia to Europe along an overland ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and a ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, with an estimated USD 1 trillion of Chinese investments committed and over 70 countries signed up so far. The concept of the BRI, as well as the direction of its strategy or agenda and its implementation, is rather malleable, fluid, and ever-evolving. Such flexibility is reflected in expanding patchwork quilt of ‘BRI projects’ that have proliferated across diverse sectors and other parts of the world including Africa and the Americas. The BRI's temporal scope is as nebulous as its functional and geographical scale. Even infrastructure projects before 2013 have been rebranded as a 'BRI project'.

 

The BRI is fraught with considerable obstacles and risks, notwithstanding the opportunities and benefits that infrastructure development can bring to many host countries under the BRI. There are growing concerns over the impact of poorly conceived or executed projects on host countries concerning issues such as the local environment, workforce, fiscal health, and political stability. These concerns have been especially acute with BRI projects and investments in ‘weak governance zones’, a term used by the OECD to describe host countries ‘where governments are unwilling or unable to assume their responsibilities’. 

 

At the same time, some are wary of China’s ambitions to expand its regional and global influence through the BRI, including a more prominent role in shaping the rules of the game in international economic, political, and legal structures and institutions. In the Fourth Plenary Session of its 18th Central Committee, the Chinese Communist Party clearly stated its desire for China to ‘vigorously participate in the formulation of international norms’ and ‘strengthen our country’s discourse power and influence in international legal affairs’. How Chinese firms are engaging with, defining, and implementing international norms under the BRI, have important implications for many areas such as transparency and governance, debt sustainability, labour, and environmental standards in host countries and globally.

 

In a recent podcast for Chatham House, I examined some of the key regulatory and normative challenges concerning labour practices and standards adopted by Chinese firms under the BRI, based on my ongoing research in this area.

 

Further empirical research can shed crucial insights on whether Chinese firms will become ‘standard-makers’ in the context of BRI, the type of standards that will emerge, and the implications for existing international norms and standards in labour and other areas. Given the pliability of the BRI, there is an opportunity for stakeholders to advocate for taking the high road to labour and other standards. I am excited to be part of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s newly established BRI Task Force, which comprises international experts from government, business, finance, civil society, and academia. In the coming months, we will be evaluating case studies of BRI projects with the aim of extrapolating best practices and standards and developing recommendations with policymakers and stakeholders in China and BRI host countries. The plan is to present our recommendations at the 2nd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in 2019. This will be a significant opportunity to engage with Chinese leadership on infrastructure and development practices, which would enable the BRI to mitigate a variety of challenges and risks and foster more sustainable and equitable development outcomes.