This investigation uses state-mobilized globalization as a framework to understand China's capitalism and emergence as a global power.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013, carries and projects powerful regional dimensions and transformations, with short- and long-term global, national and local consequences. The BRI’s regional significance lies in its designation and creation of several cross-border corridors that originate from inside China and extend out into its neighbouring countries, and those farther afield in Asia, Africa and Europe. Through driving and facilitating new trade and infrastructure connections along and beyond these corridors, the BRI has begun to reshape the master processes of globalisation, urbanisation and development by affecting the economic, social and spatial fortunes of many countries and cities. This book serves two purposes. First, through a new framework and three case studies, it examines the BRI’s impacts on globalisation, urbanisation and development via the China-Europe Freight Train, the paired construction of a new city and railway across the China-Laos borderland and the port-park-city development corridor between Djibouti and Ethiopia. Second, the comparative analysis and evidence guide the book to advance policy recommendations for targeted stakeholders that can potentially turn the BRI into a global public good with greater benefits and fewer risks.

Officially announced by Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has since become the centrepiece of China’s economic diplomacy. It is a commitment to ease bottlenecks to Eurasian trade by improving and building networks of connectivity across Central and Western Asia, where the BRI aims to act as a bond for the projects of regional cooperation and integration already in progress in Southern Asia. But it also reaches out to the Middle East as well as East and North Africa, a truly strategic area where the Belt joins the Road. Europe, the end-point of the New Silk Roads, both by land and by sea, is the ultimate geographic destination and political partner in the BRI. This report provides an in-depth analysis of the BRI, its logic, rationale and implications for international economic and political relations.

This book views the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a bold and all-encompassing 21st century global effort by China, with unprecedented perspectives. The BRI could be summarised as a 'revitalization' of China's ancient land-based and maritime silk roads, but it should be noted that its impact on China and the world stands on the foundation of omnipresent economics and how China transforms its mindset in the 21st century.Though initiated by China, the BRI's implementation has been a many-to-many effort from the start. This multi-regional and multi-national effort is distinctly different from the one-to-many effort of the Marshall Plan. The two meaning-defining chapters of this book, 'Omnipresent Economics: The Belt and Road Initiative Underpinning' and 'Supercontinent, Neo-Renaissance and Cultural Communications: The Millennium Mindset Transformations Induced by the Belt and Road Initiative', have made it abundantly clear that the BRI discussions presented are unique.The discussions of this book could shed new light on the BRI, a long-term and profound initiative by China, which in today's global discussions and debates, are entirely confined to geopolitical and economics arenas.

International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative investigates the most significant global‐scale international trade expansion and capital investment programme since the Second World War. This book focusses on the multi-national perspectives of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to interrogate the Chinese government’s representation of it as a symbol of "peace, cooperation, development and mutual benefit." With specific focus on the interrelationship between geopolitics, infrastructure investments and urban regional development, the book reflects on 12 countries’ experiences in depth, including those of Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Ethiopia, specificly to their economic development levels, political systems, power dynamics and socio-environmental issues. The book clarifies and contributes new knowledge on the nature of BRI concerning its relationship to globalism, neo-colonialism, the notion of developed vs developing countries and their institutions and macro-micro benefits and impacts. In doing so, the book offers a balanced account of the antagonistic geo-political narrative of socio-political conflict and the collaborative framework of real socio-economic flows and development. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy-makers with an interest in the BRI and its impacts on politico-economic development and urban, regional and spatial systems in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

What does the biggest geopolitical project of our time tell us about China's global ambitions?

This edited volume brings together a wide range of academics to engage with inter-disciplinary research perspectives in response to the development of The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which opens unparalleled opportunities to gain access to new markets in Asia, Europe and Africa. The collection examines opportunities offered in key areas such as trade and investment, policy coordination, facilities connectivity and cultural exchange. It also notably considers how the historical, environmental, cultural and political background to the BRI impacts this hugely ambitious plan which has been described as the ‘new Silk Road', as well as the challenges across these spheres in a part of the world which has witnessed much instability historically. Chapter "Between Adoption and Resistance. China’s Efforts of ‘Understanding the West,’ the Challenges of Transforming Monarchical Legitimacy, and the Rise of Oriental Exceptionalism, 1860-1910” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.