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Globalisation has remained a subjective term as the magnitude unfolded. Every new decade witnesses new opportunities for global integration of the economies. One among such initiatives, it is argued, is the One Belt One Road initiative of the People’s Republic of China. It is assumed to be beneficial for the world and at least for the region, if not to say more. The world has witnessed efforts and trends of protectionism as well, but China comes up with new vigour. One Belt One Road has entered into consistent talks and deliberations at the world level. It is therefore imperative to identify the emerging linkages between the participant countries in One Belt One Road. This study aims to take up the task of enquiring about the effect of One Belt One Road on the gravity between China and the nations of Eurasia. This study looks for the realisation of the expected economic ties and internationalisation emerging from One Belt One Road and the evidence for the same. This will be identified in the present study. The paper also attempts to theorise a model for One Belt One Road.

This study takes up the task of enquiring about the effect of One Belt One Road on the gravity between China and the nations of Eurasia. The hypothesised economic ties and internationalisation will be a reality or not. And what are the evidences for the same. This will be identified in the proposed study. An attempt to theorise the model for One Belt One Road is also taken.

It is perceived that the mega project would fill the wedge between China and Eurasia and convergence will follow with the start of the One Belt One Road.

The emergence of China in the global world order as the initiator of mega deals and projects and its dominion in every realm of economic activity is a topic of scrutiny for the entire world. In this context, the One Belt One Road initiative offers huge potential for exploration. As the project is in its early stages of planning and execution, its prospects of tying entire Europe and Russia with China through two of the revived ancient routes are essential to the entire world.

Although there is a growing number concerning articles/papers on China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR), it is difficult to find comprehensive research regarding the economic background in spite of the OBOR initiative involving multi-dimensional considerations. Although China targets to become a soft power leader by reviving the spirit of the old Silk Road, the OBOR is a large-scale investment project, whose rate of investment (ROI) is important for sustainability. Since new infrastructure in isolated regions is likely to be used less frequently, anticipated profitability is low. In spite of this risk, China promotes the OBOR for its economic and political purposes. China will promote the OBOR in spite of the U.S. withdrawal from TPP membership, since boosting aggregate demand is of critical importance for the country. This paper analyzes the economic background of the OBOR, which establishes China’s own model of regional integration, eases unemployment, and internationalizes its currency. Finally, this paper discusses diverse risks for China in the process of implementing the OBOR.

This paper's purpose is to suggest that manufacturers strategically place soft orders for assembly materials with suppliers in Silk Road Economic Belt countries who probably doubt the realization of the soft orders placed.

First, a two-stage Stackelberg competition is constructed, taking into account the supplier's trust level in formulating the decision process in the assembly supply chain. The authors then provide a buyback contract to coordinate the supply chain, in which the manufacturer obtains enough supplies by sharing some of the perceived risks of not fully trusted suppliers. Furthermore, the authors conduct a numerical study to investigate the influence of trust under a decentralized case and a buyback contract.

The authors found that all supply chain partners in Silk Road Economic Belt countries experience potential losses due to not fully trusting certain conditions. The study also shows that, in Silk Road Economic Belt countries, operating under a buyback contract is better than being without one in terms of assembly supply chain performance.

On the one hand, the authors only consider the asymmetry of demand information without considering that of cost structure information. On the other hand, a natural extension of the paper is to integrate single-period transactions into the multi-period transaction problem setting. As all these issues require substantial effort, the authors reserve them for future exploration.

Doing business with not-fully-trustworthy partners in Silk Road Economic Belt countries is risky, and this study reveals how trust works in global cooperation and with strategic reactions in situations of partial trust.

Since One Belt One Road (OBOR) was proposed, Singaporean sides have reacted differently. Based on the case of Zaobao, the authors develop the theoretical frame including international relations, agenda setting and media framing, analyzing the construction of textual materials on OBOR and its influencing factors.

In this sense, this paper attempts to use Zaobao's texts on OBOR from 2015 to 2017 as textual materials, by using the discourse analysis method and combining the theories of international relations, agenda setting and media framing, to explore the following two relevant questions: How does the mainstream Chinese media of Singapore construct OBOR issue? What factors influence this kind of construction?

The study finds that agendas setting on OBOR are diversified in the purpose of supporting official position and meeting audiences' expectations, which are constrained by the factors such as international situations, regional strategies, national interests and domestic politics. The authors learn more details about hidden and vague thoughts on OBOR from all sides in Singapore through this discourse analysis.

In summary, the academic community has a certain foundation for the study of the cognition of the “Belt and Road” initiative. However, compared with the other countries' research on the Belt and Road cognition, the research on Singapore is insufficient. Singapore is an important hub for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. At the same time, as a leader of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), it has a strong appeal and influence in other ASEAN countries. It has also played a pivotal role in building the “Belt and Road”. However, the “Belt and Road” initiative has been proposed and implemented for five years. The research on Singapore's cognition and reaction of the “Belt and Road” initiative is still insufficient. Therefore, an in-depth study of Singapore's cognition of the ‘Belt and Road” initiative has significant academic and applied value. This paper attempts to explore the construction of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative by Singapore's official media to make up for the shortcomings of existing research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the perspectives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Belt and Road strategy. The challenge in terms of studying the New Silk Road concept comes from the fact of dramatic difference between the declared ambitions of the Chinese state and the elusive character of concrete Chinese involvement, in particular as far as the digital dimension of the strategy is concerned.

The goal will be achieved by comparing the Chinese expansion in the Post-Soviet Central Asia with nowadays declarations concerning the digital version of the New Silk Road. For China, the Post-Soviet Central Asia was the first frontier approached on the basis of genuinely own integration strategy: the New Silk Road Diplomacy, which later evolved into the New Silk Road concept. An overview of Chinese activity in the region tells a lot about its grand strategy of today.

To paraphrase T.S. Kuhn, what one sees depends on not only what one is looking at but also what one has learned to notice. The Post-Soviet Central Asia shows the way Beijing thinks about integration. PRC achieved the most by basing on the free rider effect: concentrating on economic expansion, while other Powers provided relative regional security and stability.

The comparison of the beginnings of the New Silk Diplomacy in the 1990s with the plans of the New Digital Road gives a unique angle to grasp the specific features of the Chinese approach to international integration.

Known as the major capital providers in Belt and Road countries and the largest carbon emitter in the world, what role China's outward direct investment (ODI) plays in carbon neutralization has become a matter of concern. This study aims to measure the impact of China's ODI on the carbon emissions of Belt and Road countries.

Based on an econometric model and an inter-regional input–output model, a new model measuring the carbon emission effects of ODI is developed.

The empirical results show that (1) in general, China's ODI generates an emission-reduction effect in Belt and Road countries; (2) The relationship between the emission-reduction effect and income level of host countries shows an approximate inverted U-shaped trend; and (3) China's ODI generates stronger emission-reduction effects on capital-intensive industries.

This study quantitatively measures the scale of carbon emission-increase and reduction effect, which is relatively lacking in previous studies. This study explores the heterogeneity from the perspectives of regions, countries and industries. The authors have compiled an inter-regional input–output table for the Belt and Road countries for 2014 to provide a broad basis for the study of related issues.

This paper examines the port of Mombasa’s attempted implementation of computer-based terminal operating systems (TOS); the challenges faced and the outcomes. In addition to enhancing its operations efficiency, a key motivation for the technology was to facilitate better integration and connectivity to the Belt and Road as a key gateway along the key route. It utilised a qualitative single-case methodology, involving a combination of semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations and content analysis of relevant policy documents and reports provided by the port. The paper finds that the attempt to adopt and implement TOS at the port mostly failed as a result of a complex combination of technological, organisational and environmental factors. Most importantly, the wider business environment was ill equipped with the necessary information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to support effective implementation. There was also a general lack of appropriately skilled workers to support and drive the same.

This study aims to investigate how the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese outward foreign direct investments (FDI) impact the Belt and Road countries (BRCs). It draws on postcolonial theory to investigate the (geo)political objectives behind the financial and economic means.

In line with the nature of postcolonial studies, the study applies a discourse analysis integrating it with empirical data on indebtedness and trade.

This study finds that FDI and the BRI, as a development project, need to be considered a double-edged sword for the receiving countries. The authors provide evidence that China has instrumentalized financial and economic means to gain political influence and pursue geopolitical ambitions. Moreover, investments into sensitive sectors (e.g. energy, infrastructure), combined with the BRCs’ inability to pay back loans, could eventually lead to China gaining control of these assets.

The study investigates the financial and economic means that are instrumentalized to gain political influence while not considering flows of technology and know-how. It also limits itself to the study of FDI coming from one specific country, i.e. China. Therefore, no comparison and evaluation are made of FDI from other countries, such as the USA or European countries.

By revealing noncommercial objectives and geopolitical ambitions that China pursues through the BRI, the authors derive policy implications for the BRCs, third countries and China.

The study contributes to postcolonial theory and neocolonialism by investigating how China uses financial and economic means to achieve noncommercial objectives and pursue geopolitical ambitions. Additionally, the authors enhance the understanding of FDI by highlighting more subtle aspects of the complex and contextual nature of FDI as a social phenomenon, which have been overlooked thus far. The authors challenge the predominant positive framing of FDI and provide a counterpoint to the way FDI is often coined.

The phenomena of arbitral forum shopping to resolve a commercial investment dispute is still under development and more complicated in many states. However, for Pakistan, it seems in an evolutionary phase, where the country is struggling hard to adopt the best practice of dispute resolution through forum shopping clauses. This struggle is even more inflated with huge Chinese investment through China Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) projects in Pakistan, which come alongside with commercial investment disputes. For this purpose, the current treaty or contract-based system between China and Pakistan and litigation based domestic civil court structure look obsolete, hence, appear to require reinstatement of forum shopping clauses under concerned treaties or contracts for CPEC investment-related issues.

The authors choose a legal research method. The research design is a comparative analysis between CPEC contracts and dispute resolution mechanism between China and Pakistan and also the domestic civil court’s litigation system. This analysis selected by the authors due to inefficient bilateral investment arrangements and efficient resolution of future commercial disputes in CPEC. While the international arbitration system is included in the assessment were particular in the time and space context. The comparison comprises on dispute resolution clauses in free trade agreement (FTA) and bilateral investment treaties (BIT) between China and Pakistan and the system of resolving disputes by CPEC clauses.

The authors finds that in the absence of CPEC forum shopping clause under dispute resolution system, Pakistan is highly at risk to lose foreign investors, and therefore, set back the goal of long term economic sustainability in the region. However, China has already made its investment policies safer with establishing three international commercial courts (also referred to as Belt and Road courts), one in Xi’an for the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt, one in Shenzhen for the Maritime Silk Road and one in Beijing that will serve as the headquarters. These courts will be offering litigation, arbitration and mediation services. According to one view, China aims to have all belt and road initiative (BRI) disputes resolved by these courts. This makes Pakistan position more awkward and needs proactive measures, as CPEC investment is based on Pakistan foreign direct investment policies and legal structure. Therefore, it will be complicated and less favourable for Pakistan to deal with such cases under Chinese Courts.

The paper’s primary contribution is finding that comprehensive analysis of alternative dispute resolution mechanism between China and Pakistan over CPEC investment is inevitable. A socio-legal research combine with an examination of Singapore International Commercial Court functions and mechanism and CPEC plans further contributes to ascertain the best model of the settlement of commercial disputes under investments in Pakistan. This research paper anticipates future economic and legal problems, which Pakistan may encounter.

This paper aims to estimate the international competitiveness of China’s biomass energy products during 2007-2016 in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative.

In this paper, the authors used the constant market share model and the revealed comparative advantage index to analyze the evolution trend of China’s biomass products’ international competitiveness during the past decade from 2007 to 2016 based on the market structure of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The results show that: China’s major biomass energy products have no comparative advantages in the world market, nevertheless, their international competitiveness is on the rise; China’s biomass energy products have been agglomerated to the regional markets where the market demand growth is fast in the Belt and Road countries; and the unreasonable structure is an important factor influencing the international competitiveness of China’s biomass exports.

The authors analyzed the international competitiveness of China’s biomass energy products based on the “Belt and Road Initiative” with all the trading items, in an effort to propose policy implications for enhancing the comparative advantages of China’s biomass products in the international market especially in the Belt and Road regions.