Giant project about more than roads
China’s Belt and Road initiative has been around since September 2013. New Zealand became involved in late 2015 when this country joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – known to be one of the vehicles for funding the Belt and Road projects.
New Zealand also signed a memorandum of agreement with China in March 2017 to engage China on this initiative, which has five major goals: policy coordination, connectivity of facilities, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and peopleto-people bonds.
Despite this wide range of activities, there is a misconception that Belt and Road relates only to infrastructure projects.
Facilitating engagement across countries via major global infrastructural developments is an ambitious project.
Yet the main focus when planning these developments has been on reviving the six economic corridors that link Asia-Pacific to Europe to Africa.
The only developments that are truly new are those that will link these economic corridors to connect the regions seamlessly.
China has its eye on the growing economies across the globe with a view to cooperation. Naturally, boosting relationships with them will involve infrastructural development – hence the impression from afar that this is the focus of Belt and Road.
But since the start of the year, there has been more visibility around its other elements.
This is consistent with the fact that Belt and Road is now written into China’s constitution, and so reporting on its outcomes is compulsory.
In this way China will have to answer the viability question that was raised when the initiative was first introduced.
In other words, China will have to show that it is working, and this doesn’t depend on infrastructural developments, but rather on the results of these projects.
For example, on policy coordination, China, Japan and South Korea have been negotiating their trilateral free trade agreement for a while.
Using the Belt and Road initiative as a framework, China is seeking to link to the Asean group of Southeast Asian nations on the e-commerce front.
In 2016, the value of mobile payments related to consumer spending in China amounted to
US$790 billion (NZ$1.17b), 11 times that of the US figure. The digital economy in Asean is expected to exceed US$200b in
2020.
According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, year-toyear trade with countries along the Belt and Road initiative has experienced a significant rise in exports (12.1 per cent) and imports (26.8 per cent). Overall trade rose by 17.8 per cent in 2017 from 2016.
Independent assessments by consulting companies also suggest the (potential) upsides for many other countries.
There has also been a marked increase in the pickup of second languages in China (other than English), most notably Russian, Thai and Arabic. Traditional language choices would be Japanese and French.
A lack of awareness around Belt and Road is not exclusive to New Zealand. And China knows that – it has been holding information forums for journalists around the globe.
A good starting point here is to think beyond infrastructure and to acknowledge that China is not the only actor in this behemoth venture.
China is not the only actor in this behemoth venture.
Siah Hwee Ang holds the BNZ chair in business in Asia and is the director of the Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence at Victoria University of Wellington.