【英文】AidData报告：北京如何利用经济、社会和网络关系沿丝绸之路施加影响（82页）

英文研究报告 2022年01月25日 07:08 管理员

With six countries in the region—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—PRC leaders have historically employed an extraction strategy at the local level, heavily weighted towards financial diplomacy. Although the six countries are highly disparate in terms of income, geographic proximity, and regional zones of influence, they have two commonalities: (i) large numbers of districts that offer access to ready supplies of energy via oil, natural gas, or hydropower potential;11 and (ii) strategic positioning to Beijing’s envisioned overland or maritime transit routes. In keeping with this strategy, most of the PRC’s financial diplomacy at the subnational level in these countries has been focused on the energy and transportation sectors. Although India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka all attracted sizable financial diplomacy, Beijing focused its subnational strategy on cultural and exchange to nudge foreign publics to view the PRC more favorably.

Like the previous group, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are strategically positioned for Beijing’s envisioned overland or maritime transit routes. However, they have fewer districts that offer ready access to oil and natural gas deposits (only 23 districts as compared to 72 districts in the previous six countries). Moreover, China may have recognized its need to rely more heavily on soft power in India, to refurbish its image with the public in the context of a geostrategic rivalry characterized by mutual suspicion, and in Sri Lanka, following the fallout from Beijing’s controversial bankrolling of Hambantota port and related investments (Thompson, 2001; Thompson & Dreyer, 2011; Custer et al., 2019a). Beijing’s historical engagement with Afghanistan was notable primarily for its relative absence.