China Perspective Issues
BOOK REVIEWS
LAMPTON, David M., Selina HO, and Cheng-chwee KUIK. 2020. Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rivers of Iron examines China’s role in the development of railroad connectivity between China and Southeast Asia (SEA) via the Pan-Asia Railway Network (PARN). The authors investigate the ideational and policy sources of regional interconnectivity in both China and SEA, China’s political economy that drove it into taking a leading role in realising the long-existing vision for regional rail network, the negotiation and implementation aspects of the related railway projects, and their geopolitical and geoeconomic context. The authors do an admirable job of linking the ideational and empirical aspects of China’s “railway diplomacy” to a host of wider issues and debates, including those concerned with the objectives and modalities of China’s foreign policy, its power projection, the importance of infrastructural development in Southeast Asia and beyond, and regional politics and security.
In the process, the authors draw on a number of useful analytical tools and perspectives to explain and evaluate the mechanics of policy-making in China (such as multi-actorness and fragmentation, implementation bias, complexity of joint action, etc.) and the varying responses from across SEA (such as modalities of asymmetric power relations and the strategies of small- and medium-sized powers in that context, or the differences in elite legitimisation strategies and degree of power pluralisation in SEA countries). Their reading of the general context of China’s railway exports as well as the PARN is well informed thanks to an impressive amount of interviews across Asia. It is further helped by a context-setting based in careful historicising of regional politics in SEA as well as railway-related developments in China, SEA, and globally. Together with several journal articles on China’s railway exports that have appeared recently, the book reorients this research area by giving more consideration to the role of others and their agendas, objectives, negotiation strategies, and commonly underappreciated bargaining power – in sum, their agency – play in shaping China’s evolving relationships with the world. The result is a nuanced and convincing analysis of the drivers, processes, and outcomes relevant to the subject.
In contrast to the simplified and tired “rails for influence” paradigm that defines most media and analytical reporting on the issue, the authors refreshingly posit China’s railway exports as being primarily a developmental and profit-driven enterprise, although strategic on both sectoral and national levels, as well as having multidirectional and substantial secondary implications. In addition, contrary to the common wisdom as articulated in many media and research reports, the authors resist reading the lengthy delays and significant challenges of various types affecting some of the related projects as spelling the end for PARN, China’s railway exports, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Theirs is an argument that a variety of structural factors are bound to combine to result in the greater connectivity and deepening of ties between SEA and China, and that given the complexity of the undertaking, improving railway connectivity inevitably proceeds in a non-linear fashion and at an often-disrupted pace.
A basic premise of the book is that railways are never about railways alone, as the authors convincingly argue the relevance of railway connectivity between China and SEA on multiple levels in both domestic and international contexts. Yet, what remains unexplored to an extent is that this is so not only in terms of their potential impact on the (geo)economic and (geo)political trajectories of those involved, but that their performance and impact are substantially dependent on whether they are integrated within broader development plans. That China often pitches and negotiates railway projects as part of larger packages within which they are combined with a multitude of accompanying projects and proposals (ranging from industrial parks and ports to “soft” connectivity aspects such as policy synchronisation in various domains) is not a coincidence. In China’s own experience, infrastructure, including railways, is a departing point for, and enabler of, broader economic development guided by a proactive state. Such development takes place only once various additional functions – for example, commercial, industrial, residential –, incentivised and enabled by a favourable policy context, are developed in conjunction with infrastructure. These then feed off each other to generate new geographical and often sectorial areas of economic activity and spur on broader economic development and growth.
Whether such a holistic approach to infrastructure development travels together with China’s finances, technology, and expertise is of crucial importance to assess the prospects of railway projects. The Chinese actors often have misguided expectations that the modus operandi in the host countries is the same as in China. Yet, the question is in fact whether China effectively communicates its own developmental experience and the role of infrastructure within it. For governments in SEA and along the BRI, to have a comparable understanding of their own role in guiding development and the corresponding agenda and capacity is crucial for maximising the value of infrastructure projects and successfully leveraging them for broader development.
The evidence offered in the book paints a picture of decision-makers and experts who do not see much beyond the general notion of “infrastructure brings development,” and do not recognise the importance of a developmental state working to a strategic, long-term developmental agenda, within which railways and infrastructure are only one – although important – component. In other words, SEA countries might exercise agency when it comes to negotiating with China, but seem insufficiently attuned to the need for the state to play a decisive role in making the most out of the potential of the infrastructure development. Yet, without such a mindset and approach, railways are unlikely to perform according to the high expectations placed on them.
Such a predicament reveals not only the limits of China’s normative power internationally, but also the substantial constraints placed on the capacity of railways to serve as catalysers of broader economic and political integration between China and SEA countries. In such a context, problems in the preparation and construction phase of railways, and more broadly infrastructure projects, and eventually their suboptimal performance in generating economic benefits, are to be expected. This will likely result in more questions being asked about the end-goals of China-backed projects and in further critical assessments of their value for the host countries for years to come.