supply chains for dairy and other foodstu
ff
s; second, the export of mass tourism and
the commodi
fi
cation and extraction of landscapes; and
fi
nally, the extraction,
appropriation, and monopolization of knowledge. This last dynamic ranges from
President Xi Jinping
’
s courtship of a
“
brain drain
”
of talent through state-backed
recruitment programs to China
’
s entry into the arena of transnational intellectual
property rights through controlling stakes in international businesses.
To analyze these three facets of China
’
s present-day hyper-extractivism, we
draw on public a
ff
airs literature, trusted journalistic investigations, and scholarly
work on the BRI; on our own decades of experience living in and observing
China; and on our recent research and writing on China
’
s
“
green
”
authoritarianism
(Li and Shapiro, 2020). We hope that this chapter will add a signi
fi
cant dimension
to the e
ff
ort to understand novel forms of extraction and violence that characterize
our ever-globalizing age and highlight the particular role that China has been
playing in catalyzing and intensifying those dynamics.
As at October 2019 the Belt and Road Initiative had expanded its partnerships
to more than 137 countries and 30 international organizations. Since its inception
in 2013 the Belt and Road Initiative has met with skepticism and pushback from
multiple constituencies in member countries, but such pockets of resistance seem
insigni
fi
cant when compared to the many less-developed countries who have had
little choice but to welcome China
’
s investments as injections of much-needed
cash into their national economies. China
’
s ready provision of expertise, equip-
ment, and even labor power for the rapid construction of roads, railroads, power
plants, stadiums, and deep-water ports has drawn considerable admiration and
compares favorably to the often slow pace of funding and cumbersome social and
environmental screenings required by Western donors and lending institutions.
Even developed European countries
—
most notably Italy
—
have embraced Chinese
fi
nancing as a lifeline to revitalize a stagnant economy. High-pro
fi
le endorsements
of the Belt and Road from the leaders of multilateral institutions and from gov-
ernment o
ffi
cials have often overwhelmed dissenting voices. This is despite the
well-publicized negative experience of Sri Lanka, which was forced to agree to
give China a 99-year lease of the Hambantota Port when it could not repay its
loans, and other situations giving rise to questions about Chinese in
fl
uence over
local sovereignty from Cambodia to the Central Asian republics to Ecuador.
Even as some governments
—
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: