From Chinese dam building in Africa to the Belt and Road Initiative: Assembling infrastructure projects and their linkages |
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| Institution: | 1. Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia;2. School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia;1. Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia;2. School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia;1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China;2. School of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China;1. SAIS China Africa Research Initiative (CARI), Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, 1740 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., United States;2. Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C., United States |
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| Abstract: | This paper aims to build a political economic geography of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We draw on assemblage thinking and the notion of the Chinese Water Machine to examine Chinese practices and business-related outcomes of building a dam in Africa, stressing the complicated interactions between different actors. Based on fieldwork in China and Ghana, as well as documentary data, this paper argues that Chinese engagement with Africa is a global enterprise, in which players come from China, the recipient, and other countries; and that project-level organisation and implementation under BRI umbrella will also likely be a joint production by all such players, elaborated in a path dependent way but subject to the spatial embeddedness of specific projects. Yet whether BRI-related projects can advance the specific geopolitical and economic interests of China is uncertain: not only have Chinese players been co-constructing such infrastructure projects with non-Chinese players, but also Beijing's role in forging the expansion of Chinese corporations' business abroad is not clear. |
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