China’s BRI in Different Regions of the World: Cooperation, Contradictions and Concerns

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.
Dr. Sanjeev Kumar is a Senior Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi. He has been a Member and Coordinator of ICWA’s Core Group on China, and a Member of Vivekananda International Foundation’s China Experts Group. His research interests domestic dynamics of China, India-China relations, and China’s foreign and neighbourhood policy. Dr. Kumar has published research papers in reputed journals and contributed chapters in volumes published in India, China, and the US. His recent co-edited publications include China and the Eurasian Geographic and Geopolitical Influences.