Commerce, Coalition, and Covid-19: The Emergence and Evolution of the Green Belt and Road Initiative in China

Speaker: Min Ye (BU Pardee School) Organized with the Global Development Policy Center (Open to all BU Community Members) The original Belt and Road Initiative, despite its strategic significance, followed an economic rationale: China had surplus industrial and infrastructural capacities while BRI countries had significant deficits. The rise of the Green Belt and Road Initiative (GBRI) presents an economic puzzle: Why would China promote green technology and renewable energy to BRI countries where markets were less profitable? Moreover, most Chinese firms in the green sector are profit-driven private actors long dependent on Western markets. Why would they comply? How did political and commercial interests converge in China around the GBRI? This article examines the GBRI from 2017 to 2023, tracing its emergence and evolution within China. It finds that while the Chinese state and firms initially diverged in the implementation of the GBRI, they largely converged after 2020. This coalition formation was driven by two sequential supply shocks following the Covid-19 outbreak: the pandemic’s disruptions forced China to develop domestic and alternative trade networks, and the U.S.-led trade war increased costs and barriers to Western market access, making BRI countries both viable and necessary destinations for China’s green producers.