Jimmy Lai, Indo-Pacific tour, Chinese Embassy event
A Beijing to Britain briefing
Hello,
A new paper from Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict examined if China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has led to increased political influence in three South Asian countries: the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. As readers will be aware, the BRI tends to be viewed by politicians and analysts in liberal democracies as debt-trap diplomacy and a means of increasing China’s political clout in the region.
Academics and experts have historically found it hard to measure and quantify influence. In this study, the researchers set themselves the following parameter: “we seek to understand the extent to which a Chinese investment in a political district influences a politician’s expressed sentiment towards China. Do those politicians whose districts receive BRI projects express more positive views toward China than those who do not?” To measure this, they geo-located project-level data on BRI with daily variation in local politicians’ behaviour (as defined by the number of posts and expressed sentiment toward China) on social media, and came up with the following hypotheses:
“Politicians serving or running for office in constituencies that received BRI projects are less likely to express negative sentiment toward China after South China Sea disputes, compared to politicians in constituencies without BRI projects.”
Having analysed these posts, they conclude that “in general, we do not find strong evidence that BRI investment plays an important role in swaying local politicians’ opinions toward China…Thus, if one objective of BRI is to increase positive political sentiment towards China, then we find little support for the assertion of growing Chinese influence.”
Clearly, this is just one paper and reflects only a small handful of countries in a specific way. But it may be worth beginning to consider if it’s time for British policymakers and analysts to update their thinking about the impact, threats and challenges of the BRI.
— Sam Hogg, Editor
In this week’s Briefing Note, we look at:
Jimmy Lai’s 1000 days in jail
Indo-Pacific tour
Chinese Embassy event