How China is looking beyond borders

China is providing massive financing to participating countries, which currently officially number 66, for the development of infrastructure. Many of the recipients are developing countries which see China’s plan as an opportunity to boost their local economies. There is no firm evidence to date of how successful these projects have been in fulfilling the expectations of participating belt and road countries, but there are concerns that some projects lack regulation and coordination with existing markets. Critics of the belt and road scheme believe it represents a risk for participating countries that they will be left with unprofitable, unnecessary infrastructure. One of the biggest global concerns is that developing countries will be left with a debt burden to China which they will be unable to meet.To get more chinese news online, you can visit shine news official website.

The Brussels-based think tank Bruegel set out to gauge perception of the belt and road scheme among participating and non-participating countries. Using the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone, Bruegel conducted an analysis of broadcast, online and printed news from 132 countries between May 1, 2017 and April 25, 2018. Generally, the study found the belt and road scheme to be well perceived, with no significant gap between those countries participating and those which do not. Bruegel also used its dataset of media articles to identify the topics most frequently associated with the belt and road scheme, as well as how discussion of them affects perceptions of the scheme in different countries.

“Trade” and “investment” were the two key topics identified and it appears from Bruegel’s analysis that frequent use of “trade” in media coverage in relation to the belt and road scheme leads to more negative perceptions. Reaction to “investment” as a belt and road topic was less clear, as Bruegel found it statistically irrelevant in countries’ perceptions of the belt and road plan.The tone of media coverage about the belt and road scheme in specific articles published in a country was calculated and the result was then aggregated with the average sentiment at country level, to build a scale, from the highest positive sentiment, 4.98 points (Botswana) to the lowest -2.8 (the Maldives).

Also included in this visual analysis is an index of Operational Risk, developed by The Economist, which uses 10 criteria to quantify the risk to business profitability, based on present conditions and expectations for the median term.

Among the criteria are: security, political stability, government effectiveness, foreign trade, the legal and regulatory environment, measured by a score from 0 to 100. Combined, the measurements of sentiment and operational risk in each country help to provide an understanding of the current scenario for the belt and road programme.