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NEW BLOG POST: "The Utterly Dysfunctional Belt and Road" https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-utterly-dysfunctional-belt-and-road.html … In this blog post I tackle an interesting question: if Xi Jinping is so powerful, why does he struggle to direct and control his signature initiative?
This post takes as its starting point a newish paper by political scientists @tfbrexit and Zeng Jinghan, which argues that because BRI projects are selected by SOES, policy banks, and provincial governments, BRI in practice is divorced from the vision for it articulated by Xi.
They further argue that this is strong evidence that China is not capable of "grand strategy" at all. I agree with the claim--but only because I think the concept of "grand strategy" is mostly trash anyway.
But Xi *has* been able to successfully centralize and control certain aspects of China's policy making process. Consider, for example, the modernization and centralization of the PLA under his watch! That has gone just about as his speeches said it should.
But why? Why could he control the PLA modernization process so much better than he could the BRI process? I have some guesses... but you will have to read the blog post to see 'em: https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-utterly-dysfunctional-belt-and-road.html …
May be of special interest to: @zhubochubo @andrewbatson @EBKania @RollandNadege @Alex_Vuving @arkroeber @peter_dutton @SamRoggeveen @jessicadrun @jonlsullivan @Comparativist
You put SOEs, provincial governments and policy banks in the same basket but it's worth asking to what extent is policy bank actually a "leash" for the central leadership to keep SOEs and prov govts in line and maintain discipline of BRI
This is a good question—what is your take on it?
I tend to think CDB/EXIM more as leash as they have long been used to enforce export discipline (selective access to their financing by going-out entities) or domestic finance policy (e.g.monetized slum renovation). But I struggle to come up with an example
Very good, particularly the last four pars comparing Xi's performance on BRI vs modernisation and centralisation of the PLA.
Q about 'grand strategy', though. Wouldn't it be fair to say that the US really did have one in the Cold War? The X article and NSC 68 were real things which actually guided policy. It's not something historians just invented after the fact.
Great piece. Watching the squabbling and scrambling here in Ningbo is always fun. And we are opportunists: the gov hands out huge amounts of money for pet projects.
Great work and good read! China dropping the BCIM corridor from the BRI list after last weeks summit may be symptomatic of what you argue (aside from all the other reasons) Do you see more candidates to be dropped soon?
Bravo!
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