China’s Capital Overseas, Debt and Pollution in the Context of Belt and Road: A Historical Logic
Abstract
The “Belt and Road initiative” (BRI) has achieved remarkable results since its implementation. But it has also created pollution and government debts for countries along the route. As a result, some voices have argued that the BRI is a “neo-colonialism” in China’s quest for international political power. We try to address this issue by first reviewing China’s history of industrialization and pollution from an insider’s perspective, while discussing the interconnections between infrastructure investment and local government debts. We then extend our study overseas and look at some evidence showing how Chinese capital going abroad is related to the pollution and government debts generated along the route. We argue that the pollution and government debts generated by the BRI are closely related to China’s special economic development model in the past, and the process of Chinese capital going abroad has brought the “Chinese model” to countries along the “Belt and Road”, producing similar results as well as problems to those in China. Next, we show China’s awareness and responses to these problems, we suggest that China needs to make more efforts in the future to restrain corporate polluting behavior and improve the way it invests in infrastructure.