IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hku/wpaper/201959.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Countries' perceptions of China's Belt and Road initiative: A big data analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Alicia Garcia-Herrero

    (Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
    Chief Economist for Asia Pacific, NATIXIS
    Institute for Emerging Market Studies , Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Jianwei Xu

    (Associate professor, Beijing Normal University)

Abstract

Drawing on a global database of media articles, we quantitatively assess perceptions of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in different countries and regions. We find that the BRI is generally positively received. All regions as a whole, except South Asia, have a positive perception of the BRI, but there are marked differences at the country level, with some countries in all regions having very negative views. Interestingly, there is no significant difference in perceptions of the BRI between countries that officially participate in the BRI and those that do not. We also use our dataset of media articles to identify the topics that are most frequently associated with the BRI. The most common topics are trade and investment. Finally, we use regression analysis to identify how the frequency with which these topics are discussed in the news affects the perceptions of the BRI in different countries. We find that the more frequently trade is mentioned in the media, the more negative a country's perception of the BRI tends to be. On the other hand, while investment under the BRI seems also to attract attention in the media, it is not statistically relevant for countries' perceptions of the BRI.

Suggested Citation

  • Alicia Garcia-Herrero & Jianwei Xu, 2019. "Countries' perceptions of China's Belt and Road initiative: A big data analysis," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2019-59, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:hku:wpaper:201959
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://iems.ust.hk/assets/publications/working-papers-2019/iemswp2019-59.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2019
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simone Tagliapietra, 2024. "The European Union's Global Gateway: An institutional and economic overview," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 1326-1335, April.
    2. Razzaq, Asif & An, Hui & Delpachitra, Sarath, 2021. "Does technology gap increase FDI spillovers on productivity growth? Evidence from Chinese outward FDI in Belt and Road host countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    3. Jianxun Chu & Zameer Hassan & Syed Muhammad Sikandar, 2025. "The framing of the Belt and Road Initiative in Indo-Pakistani media," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Francisco Javier Valderrey & Miguel A. Montoya & Adriana Sánchez, 2020. "Latin America: The East Wing of the New Silk Road," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 21(1), pages 34-62, March.
    5. Olga Petricevic & David J Teece, 2019. "The structural reshaping of globalization: Implications for strategic sectors, profiting from innovation, and the multinational enterprise," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(9), pages 1487-1512, December.
    6. Jianhong Qi & Kam Ki Tang & Da Yin & Yong Zhao, 2020. "Remaking China’s Global Image with the Belt and Road Initiative: Is the Jury Out?," Discussion Papers Series 635, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    7. Aaron Marchant & Joshua Stroud, 2024. "Colombia – US relations in an era of great power competition," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 15(S3), pages 130-142, June.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hku:wpaper:201959. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Carla Chan The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Carla Chan to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieusthk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.