The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), since its announcement in 2013, has emerged as a transformative force reshaping economic, political, and strategic landscapes across Asia, Africa, and beyond. Or has it? Our article and six others in this special issue attempt to shed light on the consequences of the BRI at driving structural transformation across the Global South, emphasizing how the initiative mutually constitutes diverse national strategies and development trajectories. The analysis is structured around the interlinked perspectives of global value chains and industrial policymaking. First, we consider how China’s reconfiguration of production and trade networks creates (or impedes) opportunities for host states to capture niche markets and develop comparative advantages. Building on this, the role of state-led industrial policy in facilitating capability upgrading is unravelled. Collectively, the articles illuminate how the BRI challenges conventional models of globalization and offer fresh insights into dependent development, national growth models, and the resulting structural transformation along global value chains.
AndreoniAFrattiniFProdiG (2024) Getting robots in ‘our own hands’: structural drivers, spatial dynamics and multi-scalar industrial policy in China. Competition & Change10245294241261878.
3.
ASEAN and Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development (2023) ASEAN-IGF Minerals Cooperation: Scoping Study on Critical Minerals Supply Chains in ASEAN. International Institute for Sustainable Development.
4.
BitabarovaAG (2018) Unpacking sino-central Asian engagement along the new silk road: a case study of Kazakhstan. Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies7(2): 149.
BräutigamD (2020) A critical look at Chinese “Debt-Trap diplomacy”: the rise of a meme. Area Development and Policy5(1): 1–14.
7.
CambaA (2020) The Sino-centric capital export regime: state-Backed and flexible capital in the Philippines. Development and Change51(4): 970–997.
8.
CambaA (2022) How Chinese firms approach investment risk: strong leaders, cancellation, and pushback. Review of International Political Economy29(6): 2010–2035.
9.
CambaALimGGallagherK (2022) Leading sector and dual economy: how Indonesia and Malaysia mobilised Chinese capital in mineral processing. Third World Quarterly43(10): 2375–2395.
10.
ChenGC (2024) The United States–China race for green transformation: institutions, incentives, and green industrial policies. Journal of Chinese Political Science29(3): 461–482.
11.
ChenLChuluB (2022) Complementary institutions of industrial policy: a quasi-market role of government inspired by the evolutionary China model. Third World Quarterly44: 1–16. Routledge.
12.
ClarkeM (2020) Beijing’s pivot west: the convergence of Innenpolitik and Aussenpolitik on China’s ‘Belt and Road’?Journal of Contemporary China29(123): 336–353. Routledge.
13.
CoxheadI (2007) A new resource curse? Impacts of China’s boom on comparative advantage and resource dependence in Southeast Asia. World Development35(7): 1099–1119.
14.
de los ReyesJANem SinghJT (2024) Net-Zero Emissions and the China Challenge: Decarbonization amid Great Power Competition in the Indo-Pacific. Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine (July-August). Epub ahead of print 2024.
15.
DuráPVandermeerenF (2024) EU-China FDI: Recent Trends and Implications on EU Exposure. Publication Office of the European Union. No. 12. Single Market Economics Briefs.
16.
FasteauMFletcherI (2024) Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries. Cambridge University Press.
17.
GrafHSchmalzS (2023) Avoiding the China shock: how Chinese state-backed internationalization drives changes in European economic governance. Competition & Change10245294231207990.
18.
HendersonJNadviK (2011) Greater China, the challenges of global production networks and the dynamics of transformation. Global Networks11(3): 285–297. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
19.
HendratiIMEsquiviasMAPerdanaP, et al. (2024) US-China trade war on ASEAN region: oligopoly or systemic market structure?Cogent Business & Management11(1): 2306686.
20.
HsuehR (2011) China’s Regulatory State. 1st edition. Cornell University Press. (accessed 27 August 2021).
21.
JenkinsR (2018) How China is Reshaping the Global Economy: Development Impacts in Africa and Latin America. Oxford University Press.
22.
JiX (2024) Securitising regionalism: mega-regional trade blocs, Indo-Pacific economic framework and supply chain alliances in Asia. Asia Europe Journal22: 383–401.
23.
JonesLZengJ (2019) Understanding China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: beyond ‘grand strategy’ to a state transformation analysis. Third World Quarterly40(8): 1415–1439. Routledge.
24.
KlingerJMMuldavinJSS (2019) New geographies of development: grounding China’s global integration. Territory, Politics, Governance7(1): 1–21. Routledge.
25.
LeeC-K (2017) The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labour and Foreign Investment in China. University of Chicago Press.
26.
LimGKamA (2024) Chinese investment in Malaysia: (de)industrialization amidst greater financial and trade connectivity. European Journal of Development Research36: 571–600.
27.
LimGLiCJiX (2022) Chinese financial statecraft in Southeast Asia: an analysis of China’s infrastructure provision in Malaysia. The Pacific Review35(4): 647–665.
28.
LiuHLimG (2019) The political economy of a rising China in Southeast Asia: Malaysia’s response to the belt and road initiative. Journal of Contemporary China28(116): 216–231.
29.
LiuHLimG (2023) When the state goes transnational: the political economy of China’s engagement with Indonesia. Competition & Change27(2): 402–421.
30.
MawdsleyE (2008) Fu Manchu versus Dr Livingstone in the dark continent? Representing China, Africa and the West in British broadsheet newspapers. Political Geography27(5): 509–529.
NaughtonB (2021) The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy, 1978-2020. Lynne Rienner Publishers.
33.
Nem SinghJ (2019) Natural resources. In: ShawTMahrenbachLMurphyC, et al. (eds) Handbook of Contemporary International Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, 539–557.
34.
Nem SinghJT (2024) Business of the State: Why State Ownership Matters for Resource Governance. Oxford University Press.
35.
Nem SinghJOvadiaJS (2018) The theory and practice of building developmental states in the global south. Third World Quarterly39(6): 1033–1055. Routledge.
36.
OdijieME (2024) Nigeria’s industrial policy transformation in the era of Sino-African cooperation. Competition & Change10245294241265817.
37.
QianY (2017) How Reform Worked in China: The Transition from Plan to Market. MIT Press.
38.
TanY (2025) Zoning trans-regional projects in the belt and road initiative: how does Chinese local government re-assemble policy and capital in the China–Myanmar economic zones. Competition & Change10245294251323049.
39.
TjiaLY-n (2025) China’s role in Kazakhstan’s automotive sector: the complexity and complementarity of multi-vector state-to-state engagement and product diversification. Competition & Change.
40.
TrittoA (2025) Statism and state activism in response to China’s belt and road initiative: Indonesia and Malaysia’s approaches to developing the EV sector. Competition & Change10245294241311417.
ZhengZLiuWSongT (2022) Strategic coupling in global production networks through international cooperation zones: the Thai-Chinese Rayong industrial zone. Regional Studies56(5): 782–793.
