China’s Port Development in Southeast Asia under the Belt and Road Initiative: A Project Evaluation Report and Policy Recommendations

Abstract

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been growing rapidly and become the hope of many leastdeveloped and developing countries around the world. However, many BRI investments have become the focus of criticism and concerns over China’s political and strategic purposes, debttrap, poor governance and corruption, and low-quality development. This thesis aims at clarifying the validity of these accusations and revealing factors influencing the performance of BRI investments, in order to give practical and applicable policy recommendations to partners of the BRI. To fulfil this goal, eleven BRI port investments in Southeast Asia that were approved between January 2010 and December 2018 were examined using the goal-achievement evaluation. This analysis model was implemented in three major steps, including identifying goals, setting criteria and assessing possible impacts of interventions. The evaluations of port projects in Southeast Asia revealed that almost all criticisms towards the BRI were justified, except for debt-trap. However, the validity of the remaining criticisms was different between the six worst projects that failed in almost all criteria and the five successful projects that only failed in less than two criteria. The in-depth analysis identified that political appropriateness was the dominant factor influencing the overall performance of port projects. Another major finding is that the worst projects received the biggest investments from China and the highest level of support from recipients, while witnessing the highest level of China’s control. The research has also shown that China’s propaganda and assertiveness of promoting the BRI were consistent with its efforts to restart and rebrand ports that were built before the announcement of the initiative. The study of China and its partners’ motives pointed out that the failure of BRI port projects was the result of recipients’ corruption and over-dependence on China; and China wanted control of failed projects to pursue its political and strategic interests. This research suggests three courses of actions for recipients to make BRI port investments successful and avoid negative impacts: (i) maintaining economic and political independence when negotiating with China; (ii) developing well-designed approaches and a comprehensive master plan to ensure effectiveness, and (iii) securing political appropriateness with centralized and transparent monitoring.