CORRIDOR-ISING IMPACT ALONG THE BELT AND ROAD: Is the Newly Operational China-Laos Railway a Game-Changer?

On 3 December 2021, amid the global surge of the Omicron variant, the China-Laos Railway (CLR), under construction since 2016, launched its maiden run from and toward its two termini at Kunming, capital city of Yunnan province in south-western China, and Vientiane, capital city of Laos. In more ways than one, the CLR is an unprecedented cross-border rail project in terms of scale, length, connected places, construction type, and potentially massive regional impact. These features exemplify the growing influence of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) along its six large-scale economic corridors and their key sub-corridors. In this essay, I explore the connective effects of the CLR using combined evidence on its late construction and early operation to illustrate the BRI’s broader “corridor-ising” impact

China\u27s Key Cities: From Local Places to Global Players

China’s geographically uneven growth plays a key role in regional integration by creating more varied and largely beneficial global connections. In this article, Xiangming Chen takes a new look at China’s key cities and how they not only drive China’s local and regional economic growth but also serve as bridges to link China’s varied local economies to regional and global markets

Globalisation redux: can China’s inside-out strategy catalyse economic development and integration across its Asian borderlands and beyond? [post-print]

As the narrative of globalisation in crisis heats up, China has stepped up as a new champion of globalisation with its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. This article repositions ‘China in the Global South’ to the front and centre of the globalisation discourse. Through a triangular framework, I differentiate and reconnect the three ‘master’ processes of urbanisation, development and globalisation to understand the inside-outside connections between China’s domestic transformation and strong impact in the Global South. Using China vs Southeast Asia and Central Asia, I document how China’s westward development has created new development opportunities for its overland neighbours and beyond

Connectivity, Connectivity, Connectivity: Has the China-Europe Freight Train Become a Winning Run?

In “China and Europe: Reconnecting across a New Silk Road” (Xiangming Chen and Julie Mardeusz ’16, The European Financial Review, February/March 2015), we included a short section about the China-Europe Freight Train (CEFT). The CEFT was then in its fourth year of running, while the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was officially only two years old. A total of 815 freight trains ran between China and Europe in 2015. The pandemic year of 2020 saw 12,406 trains between China and Europe, with another surge during the first six months of 2021. What has changed over a few short years? This article addresses this question by examining the scope of the CEFT’s connectivity and its impact on both ends of a transcontinental rail freight system across Eurasia

Globalization Redux: Can China’s Inside-Out Strategy Catalyze Economic Development Across Its Asian Borderlands and Beyond [post-print]

As the narrative of globalization in crisis heats up, China has stepped up as a new champion of globalization with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This article repositions ‘China in the Global South’ to the front and center of the globalization discourse. Through a triangular framework, I differentiate and reconnect the three ‘master’ processes of urbanization, development and globalization to understand the inside-outside connections between China’s domestic transformation and strong impact in the Global South. Using China vs. Southeast Asia and Central Asia, I evaluate if and how China’s inside-out strategy can catalyze mutually beneficial development across some Asian borderlands and beyond

Change and continuity in special economic zones: a reassessment and lessons from China

Special economic zones (SEZs) have been used as an important national development instrument around the world for the past several decades. While SEZs have continued to grow, they vary considerably across developing countries in form, function and effectiveness. This wide variation challenges development scholars and policymakers to probe factors that render some SEZs more successful than others and at certain stages of development than at others, and, second, allow some SEZs to sustain their success while triggering others to fail or become obsolete. China stands out not only in having created the largest number and variety of SEZs but also in building some SEZs in other developing countries. With this exceptional combination of inside and outside experience with SEZs, China presents a timely opportunity for reassessing the new global landscape of SEZs. This paper traces the evolution of SEZ development in China and draws out policy lessons

China and the Middle East: More Than Oil

China has spread its ties to the Middle East in ways that go beyond oil. Below, Abbās Varij Kāzemi and Xiangming Chen argue that the Middle East is an important region to watch to gain a sense of China’s next moves globally

China’s Belt and Road Initiative: An Epochal Initiative Connecting the World

In 2013, the Chinese Government launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive global infrastructure-building initiative, to increase trade by connecting cities within and across continents. The initiative is redefining globalisation, urbanisation, regionalism, and development. Professor Xiangming Chen has released a policy expo-book (sponsored by the Regional Studies Association) that traces out the changing economic, social, and spatial fortunes of the regions connected to the initiative. In this timely book, the author outlines a modern, fresh and factual account of an outward-looking China ushering in a new era of globalisation through a variety of widespread and far-reaching trans-boundary economic and infrastructure connectivities

Connection Meets Disruption: The China-Europe Freight Train and the War in Ukraine

The China-Europe Freight Train (CEFT), which inaugurated its run from the megacity of Chongqing in southwestern China to Europe’s largest river port of Duisburg in western Germany in 2011, has roared through its first decade. With 82 routes currently connecting nearly 100 Chinese cities and around 200 cities across 24 European countries and more than a dozen Central, East, and Southeast Asian countries, the CEFT has formed a vast transcontinental freight network spanning both ends of Eurasia. As the CEFT runs into its second decade, it has already sent around 60,000 trains cumulatively between Europe, China, and parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia by October 2022. Every day now, around 40 freight trains carrying hundreds of containers and other forms of cargo shipments run east and west across Eurasia, with extended rail-sea and rail-river intermodal shipping across the Caspian, Black, and Mediterranean seas and along the Rhine and Yangtze Rivers. The scope and strength of the CEFT-induced logistical connectivity along Eurasia has hit an all-time high since I wrote about its then state of development in “Connectivity, Connectivity, Connectivity: Has the China-Europe Freight Train Become a Winning Run?” as the cover story for the August-September 2021 issue of this magazine. Reading that and this article in tandem will provide a broad and fast-moving picture of how a transcontinental freight rail system has developed with great rapidity, extensive reach, and considerable success, against a serious geopolitical risk posed by the war in Ukraine