The debate on One Belt, One Road - Zhang Ying

Zhang Ying

The new Marshall Plan or a sneaky way China wants to conquer the world? The opinions on China's massive One Belt, One Road program go into both directions. RSM professor Zhang Ying summarizes both views on China's investment program that is changing the world, for Friends of Europe.

Zhang Ying:

The Eurasian Silk Road was developed over a thousand years ago, and then revived by China’s President Xi Jinping in 2013 as a part of the country’s economic transition. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road and the One-Belt-One-Road, seems to have been widely accepted as an initiative to facilitate trade across the Eurasian continent, as well as geo-economic integration and global prosperity. 

However, it has been interpreted in various other ways. Two points of view stand out: There are those who view it as China’s latest strategy for boosting its slowing domestic economic growth. The others see it as a means to project China’s growing influence and an alternative to existing international geo-economic relationships. As such, the initiative has elicited respect, awe and enthusiasm among those who believe that it illustrates China’s visionary view of the future. But it has also raised questions over whether it is an altruistic contribution to the world, or just another plot by an egotistical “great power” to further its own self-interest. 

There are reasons for the concerns, just as there have been over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) promoted by the other “great power”, the United States. Some thought of the TPP as a beacon for global free trade, giving the economies of the Pacific Rim their own, well-deserved trading club. Others saw it as just another instrument for the US to align its Pacific Rim allies in an exclusive economic club. With the Trump administration’s unexpected withdrawal of the US from TPP, attention has shifted to the other forward-looking initiative Asian initiative, namely the BRI. As a result, China has been catapulted into the position of “thought leader” for a new world order. 

Those who criticise the BRI are opposed to change or motivated by populism rather than a vision of collective prosperity. However, over three years’ of BRI-related framework projects across the Eurasian continent, reality is beginning to sink in. Many countries have started to support BRI, because they see its tangible advantages, both in the short term and in the long run. Others continue to beat the drum against change. Another group is torn between believing in the benefits of the new vision but still fearing ramifications that they cannot fully grasp.

More in Friends of Europe.

Zhang Ying is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on One Road, One Belt at the China Speakers Bureau. Check out this list.

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Why China did not hit a wall - Zhang Ying

Zhang Ying

Some analysts believe China's fast development has hit a wall. RSM professor Zhang Ying is not one of them, she writes in the Finance Monthly."China’s economy does not hit the wall. Instead, it is on drive with much more power."

Zhang Ying:

China’s economic growth from the factor-driven to an efficiency-driven in the past 3 decades has not only brought China to be the world manufacturing center in the past, but also leveraged China as one of the important “spinal joints” of the world-body for the future. The reason of its importance is consistent with the global phenomena and world economy integration, as well as the interdependence between China and the rest of the world. 

China’s supply-driven and quantity-based catch-up model is very effective, particularly to bring China to the category of middle-income countries; however, once stepping into such a territory, the historical evidence already shows that the chance to be trapped in there is be very high, if without proper in-time transformation. 

Due to the high-interdependence, China’s reduced economic growth rate, though not pulling China’s economy moving down, has pulled exponential impact on some countries in terms of their employment rate and economic performance. Such symptom calls for worries and blaming to China, with two different messages: one, China hits the wall; second, China is transforming and preparing for the innovation-driven economic growth model. 

China’s current transformation, in terms of being inclusive and quality-based and dramatic rising evidence in domestic consumption and prosperous service sector, implies that China will not be falling into the first proposition. It is also supported by the vision and the joint effort of Chinese citizens, global participants, and Chinese government to build China as an inclusive society and sustainable economy for the sake of world integration and global sustainability. In principle, this direction is presented as a paradox where China’s transformation is empowered by massive entrepreneurship and innovation in the current technology-driven and digitalization era ,while presented with a reduced GDP growth rate. 

The underlying matter is our perception and the angle to view it. 

China’s economy does not hit the wall. Instead, it is on drive with much more power. With corrected understanding on the relationship between what China is working on and what the statistics simply presented, there would be more space for the world to grow together, for the world economy to be more stabilizing, sustainable and integrative.

Other opinions in the Finance Monthly.

Zhang Ying is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on China's outbound investments at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

One Belt, One Road needs much more debate - Zhang Ying

Zhang Ying

President Xi Jinping has embarked into a prestigious outbound investment program, One Belt, One Road (OBOR) worth trillions of US dollars. While the West has received the plan reluctantly positive, there is still much more debate needed at what it means for all participants, RSM business professor Zhang Ying explains in the EUReporter.

Zhang Ying:

Having participated in many forums about OBOR, my general observation is: for the West, OBOR is commonly accepted as a great idea. but the topic invokes lots of questions. Nobody seems to grasp that OBOR can function only as a joint project of all the participants involved. OBOR as an initiative proposed by China, is a global and a century project for helping to rebuild a better world order, however the ownership of OBOR rest with all the involved participants and not with China alone. This becomes evident when you look at the OBOR sister-project —- AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank). This project has always been labeled a “crowdfunding, crowd-owned” project. 

Responding to such a concern, I believe that besides the East needs more patient and effort to help the West understand OBOR, including its past evidence, current reality, and the proposed prosperity of the future, more stakeholders need to join, and support more proactively the design of the project. My sense is that most of the audience at current is still confused about the rationale behind it, and couldn’t tell the difference between OBOR economic-social-environment formula and the current ones that each has been used to deal with for the current order of the world; meaning that different parties hold different calculations for OBOR, either desperate to attract Chinese investment, or hostile blaming unbalanced trade with China. Objectively speaking: All of these attitudes are not fact-respecting, with three arguments: Firstly, as for the world order in the past, if accepting the principle of competitive advantage, this opinion shouldn’t be supported, since respecting the rationale of competitive advantage and acknowledging the consequence of competitive advantage for each participants is the condition of free-market market; Secondly, as for the world order in the future, accepting the drive of the change and the consequences of the world order revision is the condition as well. Third, as for the current, accepting emerging countries such as China coming back (or saying catching up) and even leading up especially in terms of economy is the condition for the next round of preparation for globally inclusive growth.

More at the EUReporter.

Zhang Ying is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on China's outbound investments? Do check out this list.  

Doing business with China - Zhang Ying

Zhang Ying

Chinese investors are moving into the world, including Europe, and doing business has become easier, says RSM professor Zhang Ying. Often they know each other already from the past investments into China, and communication has become much easier, she tells a website of the Spanish government.  

Zhang Ying is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

She started March 2017 a partnership between Huawei and RSM on digital education.

Are you looking for more experts on China's outbound investments at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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Zhang Ying leads RSM Huawei partnership focus on education

Zhang Ying

The Rotterdam School of Management(RSM) and telecom giant Huawei have signed a partnership to deepen their cooperation on the digitalization of the transformation of education. RSM professor Zhang Ying will lead the new partnership, according to the China Daily.

China Daily:

The project, headed by Zhang Ying, associate dean of China Business and Relations at RSM, represents a collaboration between the industry and the education sectors in China and Europe, helping industries, education institutes and research bodies move into the era of digital transformation. 

Both parties aim to facilitate knowledge sharing between technology, innovation, business development and education in order to add value to the local social-economic community and academic-practice by means of joint research, China-EU relevant business relationships, and applied projects. 

Wonder Wang, CEO of Huawei Technologies Netherlands, said Huawei is committed to investing in Europe, and the MOU is part of the company's mission to aid in talent development across Europe. 

"The goal is to achieve local employment to contribute to the European economy and serve European industries for generations to come," said Wang.

More in the China Daily.

Zhang Ying is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on innovation at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

China: becoming part of the world - Zhang Ying

Zhang Ying

RSM professor Zhang Ying discusses China's relations with the EU and the US, after the election of Donald Trump as their president. China is becoming part of the world, says Zhang, and whoever is elected, those relationships will prevail.

Professor Zhang Ying is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on China's outbound investments? Do check out this list.