China's BRI in Different Regions of the World: Cooperation, Contradictions and Concerns
Contents: Foreword. Introduction. Part I: BRI: Thematic Perspectives. 1. China’s BRI since 2013: Domestic Drivers, Conceptual Discourse and Policy Pronouncements/Sanjeev Kumar. 2. Beijing’s Ambitious 21st Century Maritime Silk Road/Pragya Pandey. 3. Economic Implications of BRI/Rahul Nath Choudhury. 4. The United States and China: The Strategic Competition and Response/Stuti Banerjee and Ankita Dutta. Part II: BRI in South Asia. 5. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Pursuing Agenda amid Conflict Situation/Dhrubajyoti Bhattacharjee. 6. China and Bangladesh under the Rubric of BRI/Teshu Singh. 7. BRI in Sri Lanka and Maldives: Economic, Political and Security Dynamics/Samatha Mallempati. 8. China’s BRI in Nepal: Complexities and Concerns/Naresh Kumar B. K. 9. China, Afghanistan and BRI/Anwesha Ghosh. Part III: BRI in China’s Neighbouring Regions: Eurasia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. 10. China’s BRI and its Neo-mercantilist Approach in Central Asia/Punit Gaur. 11. Russia-China Cooperation and the BRI/Himani Pant. 12. Japan’s Approach to BRI: Between Cooperation and Competition/Jojin V. John. 13. BRI: Responses from South Korea/Jojin V. John. 14. China-Mongolia Relations and the Economic Corridor/Sudeep Kumar. 15. Economic Statecraft through BRI in Southeast Asia/Temjenmeren Ao. Part IV: BRI in Arab World. 16. BRI and the WANA Region: An Assessment/Fazzur Rahman Siddiqui. 17. BRI: An Era of New Arab-China Engagement/Arshad. Part V: BRI in Continental Context: Europe, Africa and Latin America. 18. BRI: Narratives and Counter-Narratives from Europe/Ankita Dutta. 19. BRI in Africa: From Enthusiasm to Dilemma/Sankalp Gurjar. 20. BRI in Latin America and Caribbean: Expectations and Challenges/Stuti Banerjee. Part VI: BRI and Two Challenges of Recent Times. 21. BRI: Challenges of Pandemic and Conflict/Athar Zafar. 22. Epilogue: Regions and Reflections/Sanjeev Kumar. Index.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is completing a decade. There have been varied responses to the Initiative from countries and regions besides the emergence of alternative initiatives and narratives. This sets the stage for evaluating the robustness of the Initiative, its implementation as well as its implications from the perspective of individual countries and regions across the globe.
The book contextualises domestic discourses on the subject; identifies and highlights a number of broad trends from different regions and countries; and provides valuable insights in terms of the BRI and the emerging perceptions, contradictions and concerns in participating countries, although cooperation has been the main official agenda from the Chinese side.
The book begins by examining China’s domestic, economic, maritime and strategic interests as drivers for the Initiative. BRI has been analysed in country-specific, regional and continental contexts. It brings out the experiences and responses from South Asia, Eurasia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, Latin America, the Caribbean as well as from Europe and Africa. Further, BRI has been studied in the larger context of the US-China competition. The final section explores BRI in the context of the twin challenges of recent times, i.e., the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict. The book concludes with an epilogue which outlines the broad trends related to BRI that have emerged from this study of ICWA.
