Introduction

Taking for granted new perspectives of nationalism in China's twenty-first-century global politics, this book introduces the everyday micro and macro-social levels of political, cultural, and economic behaviours and practices of individuals and States in society. It analyses the transformations surrounding the public domain of States and their national boundaries. Indeed, examples ranging from the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) to the global social contexts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including China's politics of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), have shown evidence of growing "global nationalism”. By putting the case of China's BRI, the book advances the multi-scale dimensions of nationalism. It inserts the double face of foreign public policy and global Chinese activities. Based on a sociological-political perspective, the book reveals interactions emerging from "inside” and "outside” domains of States and their public actions. It also shows evidence of the role of culture in the global political economy. In addition, China's BRI puts forward distinct roles of culture, interests, and economy. These interactions run as the key features of the reception of the Chinese foreign policy. Specifically, technologies, development projects, trade, agro-industry, cyber-technologies, expertise, labour, military, and individuals and States' normative ambitions disclose new perspectives on nationalism and political economy. Contributors in this book explore these transactions between nationalism and economic politics by drawing on different cases from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Conclusion: What scope for EU–China cooperation in Central Asia in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative and beyond?

This chapter provides a synopsis of the overarching question of whether or not cooperation between the European Union (EU) and China in the region is possible, and, if so, how. In the current volatile geopolitical context, in which ‘established' and ‘rising' powers are seemingly competing against each other, it is important to look for common ground between the respective actors, which can serve as a basis to establish cooperation and defuse the rising tensions. The EU and China share a strong interest in Central Asia's hydrocarbon resources. ‘Green' or ‘climate cooperation' rather than a scramble for Central Asia would be a much more appropriate approach to the socio-economic and environmental challenges faced by Central Asia in the twenty-first century. The recent developments in light of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are fuelling the already existing rivalry among great powers. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Fabienne Bossuyt and Bart Dessein;individual chapters, the contributors

Institutional Differences and the Choice of Outward Foreign Direct Investment Mode under the "Belt and Road” Initiative: Experience Analysis Based on China's Manufacturing Enterprises

Based on 1692 outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) events of 735 A-share listed companies in China's manufacturing industry from 2010 to 2019, this paper empirically examines the effect of investment motivation and the impact of institutional differences between China and the host country on the choice of OFDI entry mode;the paper also investigates the moderating effect of the "Belt and Road” Initiative (BRI) on Chinese manufacturing enterprises (CMEs) through use of the logit model. The empirical results show that, with greater institutional differences, CMEs become more inclined to choose cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Furthermore, a positive moderating effect of resource-seeking motivation on the choice of M&A OFDI by CMEs is observed. The signing of the "Belt and Road” cooperation document positively moderates institutional differences in promoting CMEs—especially state-owned CMEs—to choose the M&A mode. The "Belt and Road” Initiative provides an efficient supply system for OFDI by CMEs. This study enriches and extends existing institutional theories and provides suggestions for the promotion of the geopolitical pattern and international cooperation regarding the "Belt and Road” Initiative.

Latin American Segment of China's Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21(st) Century Maritime Silk Road, is a strategy of China's entry into international markets through the building of land and sea trade corridors with the necessary infrastructure. According to the Chinese government's statements, any State and any international organization can join the project that creates an inclusive cooperation platform. The aim of this article is to analyze the implementation of BRI in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), as well as to identify changes that occur in this process under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary sources are statistical data, government documents, papers of international organizations and forums, think tank reports, speeches by officials, media publications, etc. In the course of the study, the following results are obtained: recent scientific works on the topic are systematized, the issues considered in them are highlighted;the main documents related to the BRI and China-L.. cooperation are listed and briefly characterized;the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of BRI in the region is identified. The author comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, the BRI is a kind of rebranding of China's policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean. On the other hand, this initiative strengthens China's presence in the region. It has become especially noticeable in the COVID-19 pandemic context. In addition, there is a strategic expansion of the project itself and its goals, which may lead to a significant increase in tension between China and the USA.

Impact of participation in the belt and road initiative on regional economic resilience at province level

PurposeThis study aims to examine how participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) affects province-level regional economic resilience. In the context of dual circulation - the new development paradigm proposed by the Chinese Government - participating in the BRI is an important means of connecting both international and domestic circulations and achieving high economic resilience. The complex causal relationship between participation in the BRI and province-level regional economic resilience is investigated. Design/methodology/approachBased on the complex system view, this study uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the impact on regional economic resilience when provinces participate in the BRI through unimpeded trade, infrastructure connectivity, financial integration and people-to-people bonds under the two conditions of attention allocation and buffering capacity. Qualitative textual analysis is applied to analyse provincial work reports, and relevant statistical data are used to measure the economic resilience from 2013 to 2020. FindingsThe authors identified three condition configurations that lead to a high regional economic resilience at province-level and one condition configuration that lead to no high-level regional economic resilience. Research limitations/implicationsIn-depth analyses of qualitative materials should be conducted to explain the systematic relationships among the conditions. Originality/valueThis research is of practical significance to the development of the theoretical framework and practices of the BRI in the context of dual circulation.

China's Health Silk Road in the Middle East and North Africa amidst COVID-19 and a Contested World Order

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered China a unique opportunity for worldwide deployment of its longstanding health diplomacy, renamed the Health Silk Road (HSR), now an integral part of its Belt and Road Initiative. As a self-proclaimed South-South collaborator and developer,11Niall Duggan, ‘China's changing role in its all-weather friendship with Africa', In, Sebastian Harnisch, Sebastian Bersick, and Jörn-Carsten Gottwald (Eds). China's International Roles: Challenging or Supporting International Order? (Role Theory and International Relations) (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 207-225..Beijing has assumed a leadership role, grounded in ‘moral realism', in the world's health governance. Beijing's health diplomacy has received acclaim in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). However, the pandemic has exacerbated preexisting tensions between China, the United States (US) and European Union (EU). Western countries, wary of China's rising power, reacted resentfully, confirming underlying systemic rivalry. This article argues that the currently disputed, or shifting, world order accounts for the diametrically opposed reactions between the West and the MENA toward China's Health Silk Road.

China-LAC Countries' "Belt and Road” Cooperation in the Post-Pandemic Era: BRI in Transformation

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is considered one of the most important public goods that China has contributed to the world in the twenty-first century, attracting the attention and participation of countries around the world. Latin American and Caribbean countries (LAC) are important partners for the BRI. In recent years, the relationship between China and LAC has been heating up, and cooperation in various fields has fully developed, providing a guarantee for the mutually beneficial development of China and LAC. The BRI has become a development opportunity that Latin America's political, business, academic, and nongovernmental communities are focused on. In 2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) ravaged the world, causing serious losses, economic stagnation, and social problems in many countries. On September 8, 2020, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in LAC countries was close to 7.87 million, of which Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, had more than 4.19 million confirmed cases. Due to the economic and social turmoil caused by the pandemic, the LAC economy declined by 7.9% in 2020 according to a new report from World Bank, making it a far deeper recession than the 2008–2009 global financial crisis or the Latin America debt crisis in the 1980s, erasing the growth achieved in the prior 10 years. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) pointed out that international trade continues to shrink, and LAC exports are expected to drop by 23%, which greatly hinders normal economic cooperation between China and Latin American countries. Under such circumstances, there needs to be a new vision of the BRI and China-LAC cooperation. This chapter analyzes the achievements of BRI cooperation between LAC and China, the LAC economic and social stagnation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the transformation of the "Belt and Road” joint construction between China and LAC in the post-pandemic era. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Africa's Strategic Pivots: From China's Rise to Tradeoff Between Battling Covid-19 and Violent Extremism

Spurred by the expansive shared prosperity of its Belt and Road Initiative, China was winning the economic component of its Great Power Competition with the United States in Africa. Then Covid-19 spread to Africa in February 2020. By spring Africa's honeymoon with China was over. China's Covid-19 related discrimination against Africa as well as disruption in both the supply chain and the Belt and Road Initiative weakened bilateral ties. While nobody expects China to lose its place as Africa's biggest bilateral lending and trading partner, Sino-African ties are strained. Not surprisingly, Africa turned inward and focused on its fight against the invisible Covid-19 enemy. But Africa soon found itself in a new tradeoff between battling Covid-19 and violent extremism. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

COVID-19, the Belt and Road Initiative, Tianxia/The Chinese Universe, and Universal Human Rights

This chapter discusses how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) developed from an internally driven geopolitical undertaking to tackle the bottleneck in China's domestic economic development and regional security into a more ideological and global phenomenon. During the 2018 trade war with the United States, the Chinese started to redefine democracy, human rights, and a global political system with terms such as Tianxia/All-Under-Heaven and a Community with a Shared Future for Humankind. The chapter focuses on the impact that COVID-19 has had on the BRI and how the latter has adjusted to the pandemic since early 2020. The BRI, so one suggestion is, should be viewed as a dynamically emerging series of projects that can be shaped and directed to outcomes that benefit global security and prosperity. © Oxford University Press 2022.

Chinese Anti-Westernism on Social Media

The Chinese Communist Party and its supporters are increasingly using social media platforms to shape China's public image. This online image is a means of strengthening domestic nationalism and of projecting "soft power” abroad. This paper examines various forms of anti-Westernism that are central to this image-making. It analyzes several recent topics—the Belt and Road Initiative, climate change, the COVID-19 vaccine, the Beijing Olympics, and the conflict in Ukraine—on the r/Sino subreddit page of Reddit and compares them with two online news outlets, the South China Morning Post and China Daily. The paper focuses on how these media frame the contest between a rising China and a failing West, so creating a discourse that competes with the negative portrayals of China outside the country. The paper contrasts the aggressive strengthening of China's image against the West on social media with more sober accounts of the same topics in China's official media and in commercial news outlets. The contribution of the paper is to document an emerging online anti-Westernism that is playing an increasing role in the changing geopolitical landscape. © The Author(s) 2023.

From the Great Power Competition to Great Power Cooperation: Strategic Lessons from a Pandemic

A swiftly changing geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape in Central Asia-Southeast Asia (CASA) resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the modern Great Power Competition (GPC)-calls for a timely shift in U.S. foreign diplomacy to "soft power” facilitation and cooperation in this fragile region. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that isolationism and/or the over-reliance on militaristic might are ineffective strategies for maintaining long-term U.S. national interests. As China rapidly expands its "soft power” influence in the Central Region through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the U.S. must enact similar strategic undertakings to remain competitive. To that end, the New Silk Road Initiative (NSRI) is the United States' best option to compete and/or cooperate with China's BRI. Strategic implementation of the NSRI is critical, not only for gaining traction in the modern GPC, but ultimately for expediting a successful recovery from the pandemic, through increased regional trade and economic development. The NSRI can facilitate the commercialization of Afghanistan's vast wealth of natural resources, especially its rare earth and critical minerals, ensuring continued U.S. strategic influence in the CASA region. The NSRI can also be instrumental in affording new opportunities for interstate cooperation within the scientific and technological communities during this crucial time of global recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted not only our global interconnectedness and interdependence, but also the prospect of great power cooperation in the service of global healing. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Exploiting Seams and Gaps in the Central Asia and South Asia Region: A Framework for Analysis

This chapter analyzes the implications of the maritime strategic environment for the Central Asia and South Asia (CASA) region and considers the strategic vulnerabilities-seams and gaps-in the region. The six seams and gaps discussed are environmental, geographic, political, diplomatic, institutional, and cognitive. The argument in this chapter starts with a cognitive seam: focusing on the maritime rather than solely continental perspectives, changing maps to place India at the center of the strategic dialogue, and changing perspectives to consider the opportunities for the U.S. as a challenger to networks of trade and interests that Russia, China, and other states have already built in the region. By inverting the conventional analytical framework with the U.S. as the hegemon, and thus viewing the U.S. and its allies as part of a disruptive capability, the Seams and Gaps framework also provides new policy options for challenging Russian, Chinese, and other competing narratives in the region. Moreover, by linking the CASA to the Greater Indian Ocean region and considering China's opportunities and risks from its Belt and Road Initiative, the chapter also highlights opportunities for the U.S. and its allies to change narratives and build a robust multi-polar strategy to support U.S. interests in the region and beyond. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

The Health Silk Road: A Double-Edged Sword? Assessing the Implications of China's Health Diplomacy under Covid-19 (preprint)

This study examines the Health Silk Road (HSR) as a critical component of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its implications for global health and international relations. The HSR aims to enhance public health and foster international cooperation in the healthcare sector, with objectives including strengthening healthcare infrastructure, expanding China's global health leadership, and enhancing international health cooperation. Through an in-depth analysis of the China-Pakistan collaboration on healthcare under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a case study, this research explores the motives, implications, and potential concerns associated with the HSR. This research posits that the HSR has a mix of positive and negative implications, making it challenging to categorize the initiative as simply good or bad. While the HSR contributes to improved healthcare services, infrastructure, and capacity-building in participating countries, it also raises concerns about debt sustainability, transparency, and China's geopolitical influence. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of the HSR's multifaceted impacts and underscores the importance of open dialogue, cooperation, and the sharing of best practices among stakeholders in order to maximize the initiative's benefits and minimize potential negative consequences. By assessing the motives, implications, and concerns of the HSR, this study offers valuable insights for policymakers, global health practitioners, and scholars, highlighting the significance of international collaboration in addressing shared health challenges and promoting sustainable development.

INDIA AND THE QUAD: OPPORTUNE GEOPOLITICS OR INCONSEQUENTIAL COOPERATION?

The tragic death of Shinzo Abe and the inception of the Maiden West Asian QUAD, the recent rollout of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), and the 'Quad Partnership on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) in the Indo-Pacific' and the QUAD's recent announcement of an extension of 50 Billion USD to bridge infrastructural lacunae and debt obligations in the Indo-Pacific have all pummelled the diplomatic alliance under the limelight and back into the microscopic scrutiny of scholars, political thinkers and strategists. Having displayed exceptional collaborative results in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the QUAD is seen reorganising itself, with more structure, a concrete goal, defined ambitions and convergent interests. The alliance, growing in determination, resources and effectiveness has been criticised by being equated to an Asian NATO by a disgruntled China, whose Belt and Road Initiative is being systematically undone and countered by the QUAD and their strategic policies, be it Indo-Pacific monitoring or a competitive module of vaccine diplomacy. However, despite diligent and extensive contribution in the QUAD's undertakings, India has been termed ‘the weakest link' in the QUAD. The purpose of this paper is to understand and analyse whether the QUAD is the future or past of regional geopolitics—whether it has the will, resources, and strength to spearhead international action and cooperation in the pursuit of its agendas—and where the balance of interest lies in India's membership in the QUAD. © 2022, Supporting Academic Initiatives Foundation. All rights reserved.

Investigating the N-shaped EKC in China: An imperious role of energy use and health expenditures

Since the industrial revolution, the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) has been steadily increasing. Notably, China emitted 27% of the world's GHGs in 2019, making it the world's most significant contributor to climate degradation. The key objectives of this investigation are to ascertain the N-shaped association between CO2 emissions and economic growth in the presence of energy use and domestic government health expenditures. Besides, the research inspected the role of the Belt and Road Initiative through economic globalization in China. The study utilized the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model and found that N-shaped EKC exists in China. Furthermore, the study discovered that economic globalization improves ecological excellence in the short run. Nonetheless, energy consumption and health expenditures considerably amplify the intensity of CO2 emanation in China in the long run. The research suggested that installing green industry through economic globalization can imperatively lessen environmental degradation. Moreover, installing technological firms will be more beneficial in the long run to overcome environmental degradation rather than importing from other countries. The study elaborated momentous causation effects among the study variables through the Granger causality test.

The political economy of vaccine distribution and China's Belt and Road Initiative

To what extent do national strategic interests influence countries' distribution of health assistance during a global health crisis? We examine China's global COVID-19 vaccine allocation, focusing on the relationship between its vaccine prioritization and its geopolitical expansion through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We claim China uses its vaccine diplomacy as a comprehensive tool to promote its grand strategy and expand its global leadership and influence. Employing a newly available dataset on Chinese COVID-19 vaccine deliveries for a cross-section of 108 BRI member countries, our study shows that countries with foreign direct investment flows into BRI projects have received more vaccines from China. Our findings confirm that donor strategic concerns affect bilateral foreign assistance. Our results remain robust to several robustness checks, including endogeneity concerns. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of V.K. Aggarwal.

China's health silk road construction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

China has been contributing to new approaches to global governance. The Health Silk Road (HSR), a significant component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was proposed by China in 2016. This paper claims that HSR is a new institution introduced alongside the existing WHO-led multilateral health system, and its relationship with the existing system can be described as layering. Having explored the new development of HSR during COVID-19, this paper further argues that while HSR has its unique strength in making contributions to global health governance and economic recovery, it faces a prominent issue of securitisation in the context of China-U.S. strategic competition, suspicion of the quality of medical products and sectoral fragmentation.

Exploring a new development direction of the Belt and Road Initiative in the transitional period towards the post-COVID-19 era.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, its impacts have been envisaged in multi-dimensional ways, including global supply chains, international logistics, and transportation. Owing to a series of virus variants since 2020, several Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects have been halted along the Belt and Road (B&R), and their implementation progress has been affected. In addition, China, which initiated the BRI in 2013, has been facing challenges which are caused by its economic, socio-demographic, and international political structural changes. Moreover, growing conflicts and tensions in international trade and politics, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, China-US trade conflicts, foreign companies' reshoring the production lines from China, and diplomatic disputes between China and Australia, have been interwoven with the impacts of COVID-19 on the supply chains, international trade, and transportation in the world. Having considered the above, this study explores a new research-driven approach to reignite the BRI momentum in the transitional period towards the post-COVID-19 era from a Chinese economic perspective. In doing so, this paper proposes nine research agendas, such as the optimization network of transportation and logistics distribution centers (LDCs) along the B&R, priority development and performance of LDCs, greening the B&R with green shipping corridors, revisiting port devolution continuum, humanitarian logistics in association with COVID-19, security and risk analysis of China's energy supply chains, and export of the 6th Generation Ports (6GP) model with smart ports to major container ports along the port supply chains. Each research agenda is addressed with its motivation, significance, and applicable and representative methods.

Latin American Segment of China's Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21(st) Century Maritime Silk Road, is a strategy of China's entry into international markets through the building of land and sea trade corridors with the necessary infrastructure. According to the Chinese government's statements, any State and any international organization can join the project that creates an inclusive cooperation platform. The aim of this article is to analyze the implementation of BRI in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), as well as to identify changes that occur in this process under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary sources are statistical data, government documents, papers of international organizations and forums, think tank reports, speeches by officials, media publications, etc. In the course of the study, the following results are obtained: recent scientific works on the topic are systematized, the issues considered in them are highlighted;the main documents related to the BRI and China-L.. cooperation are listed and briefly characterized;the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of BRI in the region is identified. The author comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, the BRI is a kind of rebranding of China's policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean. On the other hand, this initiative strengthens China's presence in the region. It has become especially noticeable in the COVID-19 pandemic context. In addition, there is a strategic expansion of the project itself and its goals, which may lead to a significant increase in tension between China and the USA.

Pattern changes of ecological product trade in countries along the Belt and Road.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was designed to promote economic and trade cooperation between countries along the Belt and Road (B&R), specifically by building an international trade network. Ecological resources are the basis for human survival. Countries along the B&R transform ecological resources into ecological products by production activities. These products can then be used for trade, thereby driving the countries' economic development. This study uses net primary productivity (NPP) as a unified measure of ecological products, and explores the pattern changes of ecological product trade in countries along the B&R, from 2013 to 2019 (from the BRI proposal to the outbreak of COVID-19). The purpose of the study is to reveal the impact of the BRI on the trade of ecological products. The results show that (1) the trade scale of ecological products in the B&R region has changed significantly. The total volume of traded ecological products increased from 2071.74 to 2631.00 TgC. This represented an increase of about 26.99%, or 7.41% higher than the global average. (2) The spatial distribution pattern of ecological product trade did not change significantly in countries along the B&R. However, the gravity centers of the total and net trade volume of ecological products moved 120.74 km to the northeast and 392.98 km to the southeast, respectively. (3) The trade structure of ecological products in the B&R region, six sub-regions, and most countries remained relatively stable. Only the proportion of the livestock products trade in Mongolia and the proportion of the forest products trade in Bhutan have increased significantly. This finding suggests that the strength and breadth of the construction of unimpeded trade in countries along the B&R still need to further strengthened, in order to accelerate the realization of the vision of the Green Silk Road.