Where does Xinjiang fit within the Belt and Road Initiative? Indications from CCP Documents and China’s Steel industry

ABSTRACT

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious, contentious, and world-spanning project. Using Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents, this paper examines one of the stated purposes of the BRI: to address regional inequality between China’s east and west, focusing upon Xinjiang. Through an analysis of regional economic data, the demographics of Xinjiang and Xinjiang governing bodies, and a case study of the Chinese steel industry, this paper shows that the BRI has so far failed to check increasing regional inequality in China and that job opportunities for local communities in Xinjiang are constrained by social and political factors.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Xinjiang
• Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
• steel industry

Introduction

While scholars generally agree that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, is a major factor shaping Asia’s future, there is no agreement about what exactly the BRI is or its implications for the continent. Some scholars consider the BRI the world’s largest development project, linking over seventy countries which comprise two-thirds of the world’s population and one-third of the world’s GDP.¹ China has taken on high-risk loans for projects that institutions like the World Bank have refused to finance, in a manner that promises an “open and inclusive model of sustainable international economic, political and cultural cooperation and development.”² And yet, to many critics, the BRI is simply a new “spatial fix”—a program to shift excess capital outside of eastern China, where the elite face a realization crisis.³ However generous the terms of Chinese government loans to developing countries, the result is debt.⁴ Today, China’s state-affiliated banks are collectively the world’s largest creditor to the Global South. Is this a sign of China’s generosity or greed? Is the BRI a symptom of the maturation of China’s capitalist society, or a sign that China has become a new type of capitalist empire?

Among scholars and analysts there is no consensus about the nature of the state in China. Nor is there general agreement about the geopolitics of a capitalist project that promises to reorganize networks of production and consumption across Asia and the world—and, in light of the instability of the US-China relationship, these geopolitics are too dynamic to interpret easily. In addition, foreign critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tend to be sceptical of the BRI’s benefits, whereas Party supporters celebrate them. Further complicating analyses of the BRI are enormous data gaps. It is difficult to assess, for example, how returns from this world-spanning project are calculated without access to internal party documents and first-hand research. Several reviewers of this paper suggested just this, and we agree; but, for political reasons, we cannot conduct fieldwork in Xinjiang today.

In what follows we evaluate the meaning and implications of the BRI in Xinjiang using three available sources: data on regional inequality, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents, and data on the steel industry.

BRI within China

Within the English language literature, there has been a plethora of research investigating the international political economy of the BRI. A much smaller body of literature considers these factors within China.⁵ This is unfortunate, because the BRI is driven in part by domestic pressures,⁶ and loans granted outside China are largely driven by China’s internal political economy.⁷

Several hub-cities of the BRI within China comprise nodes for trade along international corridors. These include Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xi’an, Ürümqi, and Kashgar. Xi’an is the starting point of the Silk Road economic belt which links the city with Ürümqi and a node in Kazakhstan. At the center of this “new Silk Road” is the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Xinjiang’s rich natural resources, along with its geographical position, have made it central to transport and extractive infrastructures, linking China’s eastern industrial core with Central Asia.⁸ The BRI aims to restore the cross-border relations and trade that long existed between Xinjiang and other Central Asian societies and extend these links to southern Asia.⁹ The city of Kashgar in southern Xinjiang will become a hub between China and Pakistan; the corridor between Kashgar and Gwadar Port in Pakistan is set to become a “network of railways, highways, oil and gas pipelines, as well as communication fibre optic cables” by 2030.¹⁰

A fast-growing literature considers the BRI and trade between Xinjiang and bordering Central Asian countries.¹¹ While scholars predict rapid economic growth in Xinjiang, concerns have been raised. Rippa notes that along the China-Pakistan economic corridor, local actors in peripheral regions tend to receive few direct benefits.¹² She also has written that border openings in Xinjiang have caused an increase in regulations on and limitations around trade across it.¹³

Zhang et al. observed that the building of the BRI corridor has affected the viability of rural communities and caution that “ethnic minorities might be facing landlessness, joblessness, income loss, and displacement induced by land requirement.”¹⁴ Clarke has argued that China’s implementation of the BRI in Xinjiang has been contradictory, as the government’s narrative of “openness” around the BRI clashes with an intensification of state repression, surveillance, and social control.¹⁵

Deepening regional economic connections also complicate the state’s goal of national integration of Xinjiang. This tension is explicitly recognized by state officials, who seek to manage it via development and repression, mediated by security. President Xi Jinping, for instance, has stated, “We should foster the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and create a security environment built and shared by all.”¹⁶ And at the May 2023 China-Central Asia Summit, he emphasized the need to “uphold universal security” and “jointly implement the Global Security Initiative,” linking these to the BRI.¹⁷

The Chinese government defines Xinjiang as an integral, long-standing part of Chinese territory, and claims that anti-terrorism and de-radicalization policies are needed to ensure social stability and economic development of the region.¹⁸ However, the historical relationship between the territory known today as Xinjiang and China is complex. The Kingdom of Kara-Khoja (also known as Qocho) existed from approximately 832 CE until 1132 CE, when it became a vassal state first of the Western Liao dynasty and then the Mongol Empire before being dissolved in 1335 CE. The present territory of Xinjiang was not brought into the Chinese Empire until the Qing expansion of the 1700s. This generated numerous uprisings against the Qing and later Republican China. During the decades of political instability from the collapse of the Qing in 1911 until the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, two iterations of the Eastern Turkistan Republic existed.¹⁹ The relationship between this territory and state power has long been contested and unstable.

This complicated history of the Chinese state’s relationship with Xinjiang does not square with the CCP’s narrative that its actions in Xinjiang comprise an act of “rescue.”²⁰ The acknowledgement that Uyghurs are the indigenous inhabitants of Xinjiang (and hence outside of ‘Chinese-ness’)²¹ threatens the Chinese government’s authority; hence the government labeling Uyghurs (particularly those thought to be separatists) as “terrorists” and “extremists” that threaten social stability and who must therefore be policed, if not incarcerated.²² China’s state conducts intense surveillance on Xinjiang’s ethnic minority groups.²³ The rapid expansion of BRI-funded connective infrastructure in Xinjiang has been coupled with intensive investment in security, surveillance infrastructure (such as street checkpoints for mobile phone inspection) and detention centers.²⁴ These detention centers provide low-cost labor for the production of commodities like cotton goods.²⁵ The Chinese state has punished foreign governments (through sanctions) and multinational corporations (through loss of market access) for raising concerns about this forced labor.²⁶ Taking all this together with Rippa and Zhang et al.’s assertion that Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are losing out from the BRI, we have a mandate to compare how the BRI is presented in official materials with its actual social and economic effects.²⁷

By soldering the region into new networks of commodity circulation, the BRI is certain to change the political economy of Xinjiang. But the precise nature and consequences of these changes—and the extent they reflect China’s national political-economic strategy—remain highly uncertain, as little data are publicly available, particularly in foreign languages. The contribution of this paper is to advance the literature by reviewing internal CCP documents in Chinese and information from the PRC’s National Bureau of Statistics, coupled with a case study of the steel industry in Xinjiang. We show that the BRI is fashioned to incorporate Xinjiang more fully within China’s capitalist economy.²⁸ Despite official documentation stating that Xinjiang is a main beneficiary of the BRI, the region has received comparatively modest benefits relative to firms and politically connected groups in eastern China. Since we see no counteracting forces capable of changing this pattern, the BRI, though intended to address regional spatial inequalities, is likely to exacerbate them.

Xinjiang within the BRI

Since the reform and opening movement began in 1979, the CCP’s political legitimacy has been based upon facilitating rapid economic growth. And indeed, the Chinese economy grew extremely rapidly, particularly between 1990 and 2007. Yet during the same period, China also experienced a significant increase in income and wealth inequality.²⁹ Class inequality is problematic for a political party that claims to advance a Communist program.

Reducing China’s regional inequality is a major priority for the CCP. This is reflected in two of the “Five Big Development Concepts” (wŭdà fāzhǎn lǐniàn), “coordination” and “sharing.”³⁰ In 2000, the government announced the “Western Development Strategy” (xībù dà kāifā zhànlüè) aimed at increasing development in areas such as Xinjiang. Since 2013, this strategy has been largely subsumed into the BRI. The State Council’s Office of Information website states that the BRI is meant to bring development opportunities to the western region in particular.³¹

The BRI has been the central mechanism for mitigating regional inequality in recent five-year plans. According to the thirteenth such plan (2016-2020), the government “will give high priority to implementing the strategy for the large-scale development of the western region and ensure that the [BRI drives] development in this region”³² and “we will work to develop Xinjiang as the core region for the Silk Road Economic Belt.”³³ Similarly, the current fourteenth plan (2021-2025) aims in part to “actively integrate regional development into the pursuit of the Belt and Road Initiative.”³⁴ and emphasizes the need to develop areas with concentrations of ethnic minorities, noting Hotan Prefecture, Aksu Prefecture, Kashi (Kashgar) Prefecture, and Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in southern Xinjiang in particular.

However, the BRI has not helped mitigate economic inequality between Xinjiang and eastern China. Indeed, regional economic inequality has increased (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. D-Values of Xinjiang. D-values = (GRP per capita for a given province in a given year – the average of all provinces in China in that given year). Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Figure 2. D-Values of the Western Economic Zone. Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China.

To understand why regional inequality stubbornly persists, it is helpful to consider a particular sector or industry which is expected to contribute to growth in Xinjiang. We focus on the steel industry because steel is an essential capital good, one which is used for diverse purposes in infrastructure, construction, and consumer goods.³⁵ Moreover, steel has held symbolic significance in China since at least the 1950s.³⁶ In 2014, the State Council, then chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, called the steel industry “an important fundamental industry of the national economy and an important symbol of the country’s economic and social development level and comprehensive strength.”³⁷

Evidence from the Steel Industry

During the tumultuous 1970s, China’s political leaders came to view the task of nation-building in a literal and material sense: the construction of infrastructure and cities should be at the heart of China’s state.³⁸ This construction orientation of the state building project later extended internationally.³⁹ Today the Chinese government—like other industrialized capitalist states—considers steel a strategic commodity.⁴⁰

Steel production increased from 28.8 million metric tons per year in 1978 to 116.6 million metric tons in 2000. Growth further accelerated after 2000 and China became a net exporter of steel in 2005. While the growth rate of the industry has slowed (in relative terms) since 2014, in 2019 China produced 996 million metric tons of crude steel—more than one-half of global crude steel production.⁴¹ In 2020, its 36 A-share iron and steel companies had a net profit of 59.817 billion RMB (US$ 8.4 billion).⁴²

China’s Baosteel Enterprise (now China Baowu Steel Group) was created on December 23, 1978, as “the largest engineering project in China after 1949.”⁴³ While at that time the accumulation of private capital had only just begun and individual capitalists could not form large, private steel companies, the creation of a state-owned steel enterprise (SOE) on the second day of the reform period shows the intentionality of the government to both prioritize steel-intensive infrastructure enterprises and ensure the government’s dominant hand in the industry moving forward. As seen in Figure 3, the dominance of state-owned steel firms persists.

Figure 3. The ten highest-producing Chinese steel enterprises as of 2019. Source: Statista.

As of 2019, seven of the ten largest Chinese steel companies were state-owned enterprises; of these, two—China Baowu Steel Group and Ansteel Group—are centrally owned/national enterprises. Baowu Steel is the country’s top steel producer, with over twice the output of crude steel as the next highest producer. The Chinese government also owns substantial stakes in many of the top private steel producers, making them subject to considerable influence.⁴⁴

Through the establishment of Baosteel on the second day of Deng Xiaoping’s reform, the Chinese state positioned itself as a primary beneficiary of any project that requires steel inputs. Despite the innumerable national projects that have required steel over the decades, by the 2010s Chinese steel production surpassed national demand, with a seventy-five percent utilization rate in 2012.⁴⁵ This overproduction, which was due in part to generous state subsidies to steel SOEs, particularly during the 2007-2008 global economic crisis, reduced the profitability of the industry and threatened Chinese banks with loan losses.⁴⁶ Rather than letting supply fall with demand as in a typical market economy, the Chinese government sought to increase external demand for steel. The BRI was one of the most important measures for increasing external demand for Chinese steel exports and therefore national economic stability.⁴⁷

Since infrastructure projects require steel, the BRI contributes directly to China’s steel industry.⁴⁸ Chinese materials are commonly used in all BRI infrastructure projects, stimulating a demand for China’s steel.⁴⁹ Indeed, Ni et al. predicted that the Belt and Road Initiative would solve China’s steel overcapacity issue by 2020, with only an estimated thirty-two to fifty-eight million metric tons of excess steel by the end of 2020, rather than the 200 million metric tons in 2012.⁵⁰ While the Coronavirus pandemic may have affected this prediction, the BRI has increased demand for steel.

As Figure 3 illustrates, all but one of the country’s top steel companies are wholly or partially owned by some part of the state, and all but one are based in the more prosperous eastern part of the country.⁵¹ Xinjiang has three state-owned steel enterprises, one of which (Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel) is a subsidiary of Baowu Steel and thus centrally owned. Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel was the first iron and steel plant established in Xinjiang in 1951. After General Wang Zhen announced in 1949 that Xinjiang must have its own steel plant in order for the government to build railways and encourage economic development, Shanghai’s Yihua Steelmaking Plant was moved to Xinjiang (along with its managers and skilled workers). The Ministry of Heavy Industry allocated a blast furnace, and the renamed Bayi Iron and Steel factory was officially established in 1951.⁵²

In addition, the central government established the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (Xīnjiāng shēngchǎn jiànshè, XJCC) in 1954. This organization led Xinjiang’s modernization in the following decades, including establishing large-scale industrial and mining enterprises.⁵³ In the 1980s it was tasked by the government with combating the “Three Evil Forces” (sāngŭ shìlì) of separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism, along with border security and the “integration of troops and land.”⁵⁴ The XJCC also ensures a permanent population of Han Chinese in Xinjiang, representing twelve percent of the population as of 2018.⁵⁵

In 2007, Baowu Steel brought Bayi Iron and Steel under its banner as a subsidiary after acquiring a majority stake. In 2019, company officials announced that it would be Baowu’s industrial platform in the west, with the intention to integrate Xinjiang’s steel production capacity and take advantage of the BRI’s development opportunities.⁵⁶ While Baowu’s work to integrate Xinjaing’s steel industry to create a more efficient and competitive industry chain may produce positive results for the region, it also has considerable benefits for the large centrally owned enterprise. The two other steel firms in Xinjiang are Shougang Yili Steel and Sinosteel Xinjiang. Sinosteel Xinjiang is a subsidiary of China Sinosteel Group, which Baowu Steel also owns as of 2022.

Most of the steel used in Xinjiang is produced in the east. Between the inception of the BRI in 2013 and 2019, there was no push for western steel producers (Figure 4). Only two of China’s fifteen top steel producers, Baotou Steel and Liuzhou Steel, are located in the west. Founded in 1954 and 1958, respectively, they were established long before BRI.

Figure 4. China’s three economic zones and the home province of China’s top ten steel enterprises.

The relative geographical competitiveness of enterprises is not the sole deciding factor when the state regulates the steel industry, particularly as the BRI has allowed local governments in central China to save loss-making SOEs with a boost in domestic financing for local infrastructure projects.⁵⁷ This has been specifically true of local steelmakers, who claim the BRI has provided a “precious opportunity” to stay afloat.⁵⁸

Another dimension to consider is the factional character of Chinese politics.⁵⁹ Intra-provincial factions band together to compete with other groups for local power and resources, with these factions often based on native place association.⁶⁰ Factions pursue policies that will provide material benefits to themselves while plausibly serving the public interest.⁶¹ The goals of these factions depend on their relative strength, with local leaders belonging to strong factions less likely to pursue policies beneficial to local development as individuals higher in the political hierarchy decide their political survival, rather than their constituents.⁶²

While the BRI is intended to support SOEs, the interests of Xinjiang local leaders’ factions determine whether specific policies actually aid local development. However, it is notable that, of the thirteen current members of the Standing Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, nine are ethnic Han; and their leader (who is also the First Secretary and First Political Commissar of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps), Ma Xingrui, is a Shandong native.⁶³ The previous leader (from 2016 to 2021), Chen Quanguo, is from Henan, and ten of the fifteen members of the committee he led were Han.⁶⁴ It may be that local development in Xinjiang has not been the political priority of Xinjiang’s leaders as the BRI has taken shape. In this case, it is not surprising that native enterprises have not been given priority.

Promoting steel enterprises further west and taking advantage of existing iron deposits would be an important step in ensuring western China reaps benefits from the infrastructure project-oriented BRI. Additionally, building profitable local SOEs may ease the tax burden on rural residents, as without the profits of SOEs (or taxes paid by large private corporations), local governments will raise taxes and fees on rural farmers, known as the “peasant burden,”⁶⁵ which, in the case of Xinjiang, are mostly ethnic minorities. However, the lack of western-based enterprises profiting from the BRI extends beyond resource industries; for example, the majority of construction contracts for large-scale infrastructure projects in Kashgar have been won by eastern enterprises.⁶⁶ The presence of eastern and centrally-owned SOEs is also ubiquitous.

G7 Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway and SOEs

Construction of the G7 Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway provides a good example of a domestic BRI infrastructure project. The project has been called by the central government a Belt and Road Initiative “Super project.”⁶⁷ It runs 2,582 kilometers and connects Beijing to Ürümqi. Construction started in 2014 and the highway opened in 2017.⁶⁸ This project arguably was an opportunity for the government to boost western economic development by inviting local enterprises and workers to take part. Instead, construction was spearheaded by three central state enterprises: China State Construction, China Railway, and China Communications Construction.

The continued predominance of state-owned enterprises in Xinjiang is supported by China’s current (fourteenth) five-year plan. It calls for state-owned enterprises to be a main source of investment in Xinjiang’s economic development, including Power China, which “will actively participate in the construction, transformation, and upgrading of major projects such as the Xinjiang railway, highway, and air transportation systems.”⁶⁹ Considering transportation and general infrastructure building are key factors in Xinjiang’s development model under both the BRI and the state’s Five-Year Plans, SOEs will continue to dominate the BRI in Xinjiang.⁷⁰

Party members must be atheistic; this discriminates against Uyghurs that practice Islam. Uyghurs within the Party are held to exacting standards and have been harshly criticized. Yusuf Aisha, a Uyghur and former Vice Chairman of the CPPCC of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, has stated, “At present, among some Uyghur party members and cadres, there are problems such as lack of firm ideals and beliefs, weakened sense of purpose, and weak party consciousness … [Uyghur party members] play a special role in the reunification of the motherland, national unity and social stability.”⁷¹ Like all Party members, they must also demonstrate loyalty to the Party. This becomes complicated when their people are discriminated against by the government.

Like large and powerful local governments, large SOEs have more power to resist mandates by the CCP, but these SOEs ultimately end up less competitive internationally and less profitable.⁷² Given that SOEs are beneficiaries of BRI projects, members of minority groups that do not fall in line with Party standards are unlikely to benefit from employment or salaries that BRI projects may bring. They may even lose government positions during initiatives which are supposed to help them, as has been the case with Tibet.⁷³

Social and Political Factors

Hu Chunhua and Tibet

The BRI was preceded by the Western Development Strategy, which targeted the Tibetan Autonomous region (TAR). One current leader of BRI implementation previously was posted in Tibet, Hu Chunhua, a member of the National Leading Group for Promoting the Construction of One Belt and One Road (guójiā tuījìn yīdài yīlù jiànshè gōngzuò lǐngdǎo xiǎozŭ), the coordinating body of the BRI within the State Council. Hu has worked in Hebei, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia over his career. In his first fourteen-year tenure in Tibet (1983-1997), he was secretary of the Communist Youth League Tibet Autonomous Region Committee and commissioner of Lizhi and Shannan districts. He returned to Tibet for five years in 2001 as a member of the Standing Committee and Secretary-General of the CCP Tibet Autonomous Region Party Committee.

During his second stint in Tibet, Hu played a role in implementing the Western Development Strategy. The projects that resulted were largely capital-intensive infrastructure projects, including a railway connecting the region to inner China via Qinghai. Finished in 2006, this line was advertised as a method to stimulate Tibet’s economy through tourism and mining. However, many native Tibetans saw it as a means to encourage migration of Han Chinese into the region.⁷⁴ In this way, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway continued the tradition of attracting entrepreneurs from outside the region through the promise of economic opportunities.⁷⁵

Hu Chunhua’s tenure in Tibet saw a large-scale infrastructure project that encouraged the migration of Han Chinese into Tibet, with subsidies from the central government encouraging Han migration, although they remain a small portion of the Tibetan populace,⁷⁶ while native Tibetan representation in local CCP cadres sharply declined. We are not suggesting that these results reflect Hu Chunhua’s choices; a large infrastructure project would have to be approved by the Chinese central authority. Such projects also continue the “Red Engineers” legacy.⁷⁷ It would be reasonable to consider if similar patterns will be repeated in the implementation of the BRI in Xinjiang.

Demographics

The lack of representation of ethnic Tibetans in decision-making positions in the TAR during the implementation of the Great Western Development is also reflected in the BRI. Across Central Asia, multilateral decision-making, inclusive of local governments, has been largely absent in BRI projects,⁷⁸ likely reflecting its implementation within China. Those in charge of implementing the BRI within Xinjiang are members of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, of whom the majority are Han Chinese.⁷⁹

According to the 2021 National Census, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang increased by 1.62 million between 2010 to 2021, from 11,624,257 to 13,247,257 (fourteen percent).⁸⁰ During this period the Han population increased by 2.17 million, to 10,920,098 (a 19.9 percent increase).⁸¹ Of the Han increase, 1.95 million came from in-migration from other provinces. This follows the trend in the TAR, where a large development initiative resulted in an increase of in-migration of Han Chinese seeking economic opportunities.⁸²

Figure 5 shows that the Han Chinese population trended upward during the BRI’s implementation. ∼90% of this increase in Han Chinese population is caused by inter-regional migration. This suggests that many jobs and opportunities generated by the BRI in Xinjiang flow to non-local Han Chinese. Additionally, employment given to Uyghurs in construction or manufacturing jobs⁸³ may be the result of forced labor from relocated detainees from “re-education” camps.⁸⁴ While it cannot be said with certainty that the majority of Han migrants come to Xinjiang for employment that falls within the scope of the BRI, the influx of Han Chinese into Xinjiang coincides with the development of the BRI as well as the mass surveillance and incarceration of Xinjiang natives.

Figure 5. Ethnic Han Chinese population in Xinjiang. Source: National Census of China 2010 & 2021; China Statistical Yearbooks.

Conclusion

The Government of China would like to reduce regional inequality and seeks to use the BRI to do so in Xinjing. Yet three elements suggest that, at least to this point, the BRI has failed to check regional inequality. First is the increasing gap in per-capita GRP (gross regional product) between Xinjiang and the average per-capita GRP of Chinese provinces.⁸⁵ Second is the continued dominance of eastern SOE firms in the steel industry specifically and BRI projects generally. Third is an increase in non-local Han Chinese migrants and a relative lack of BRI-related job opportunities for Xinjiang natives.

Geopolitics is likely a factor limiting the effectiveness of the BRI in reducing regional inequality. As state-building in Xinjiang is one of the central motivators of the BRI, a focus on security has contributed to economic inefficiencies.⁸⁶ Those who were already integrated into formal systems were able to take advantage of large-scale development projects; those who were not—particularly Uyghurs—experienced loss of space, land, and resources, contributing to their economic exclusion.⁸⁷

However, this may underestimate the economic benefits of the BRI, such as opening new markets to Chinese industries (including steel) and allowing them to continue operating at a surplus.⁸⁸ It is possible that Xinjiang may see more benefits from the BRI in the future and even begin to close the gap between it and China’s eastern provinces. However, to date, the evidence shows that regional inequality has increased.

Our analysis lends credence to the interpretation of the BRI as a spatial fix. A spatial fix is meant to address the overaccumulation of capital at the economic center (in this case, China’s industrial production zone in the eastern region) via geographical expansion and opening new markets. As David Harvey notes, transportation innovation is a key feature of a spatial fix, required to facilitate geographical expansion (and soak up surplus investment capital).⁸⁹ The core of the BRI is formed by transportation and infrastructure projects (e.g., the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the G7 Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway “super project”). While infrastructure may facilitate development, Xinjiang has not seen gains in regional equality since the onset of construction of these transportation corridors. The economies of eastern provinces have continued to grow faster than those of the western region; inter-provincial SOEs and Han Chinese migrants have found opportunities in these areas where local residents have not. While official Party literature states the BRI is an even-growth initiative, the results of its implementation show the hallmarks of a spatial fix.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Padraig Carmody, Will Jones, Seung-Ook Lee, Morgan Liu, Max Woodworth, Emily Yeh, and our anonymous reviewers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Justine Franklin

Justine Franklin has an MA from the Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics Department and the East Asian Studies Center at Ohio State University, where she studied China and political economy.

Joel Wainwright

Joel Wainwright is a Professor of Geography at Ohio State University, where he studies political economy, environmental change, and social theory. He is the author of Decolonizing Development: Colonial Power and the Maya (Wiley, 2008), Geopiracy: Oaxaca, Militant Empiricism, and Geographical Thought (Palgrave Pilot, 2012) and, with Geoff Mann, Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of our Planetary Future (Verso, 2020).

Notes

1 World Bank 2018.

2 Dunford and Liu 2019, 145.

3 Cf. Carmody and Wainwright 2022; Carmody et al. 2022; Zhang 2017. Harvey (2001) defines a spatial fix as capitalism’s strategy to resolve a crisis of overaccumulation (where a surplus of capital leads to devaluation and unprofitability) by geographical expansion and restructuring. His earlier work (Harvey 1981) identifies colonialism as a spatial fix through the lens of Hegel and von Thünen, but the underlying theory is derived from Marx and Luxemburg.

4 Cf. Carmody et al. 2022; Zeeshan et al. 2021; van Twillert 2023. Since the BRI is principally comprised of infrastructure projects, the inability to repay debt can lead to China owning or otherwise controlling critical infrastructure in other countries. A much-disputed case is Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port: for a review of the literature, see Kamburawala and Abeyrathne (2022).

5 The literature in Chinese is more balanced, but tilts toward empirical, pro-BRI studies.

6 Carmody and Wainwright 2022; Ghulam 2022; Garcia and Guerreiro 2024.

7 Zhang et al. 2018; Clarke 2020; van Twillert and Halleck Vega 2023; Mostafanezhad et al. 2023.

8 Rippa and Carson 2023.

9 Rippa 2020.

10 Hayes 2020.

11 Cf. Clarke 2018; Caskey and Murtazashvili 2022; Ghulam 2022; Wang 2023.

12 Rippa 2020.

13 Rippa 2019. She describes how Pakistani traders in Xinjiang face increased scrutiny, their businesses regularly visited by local police.

14 Zhang et al. 2018.

15 Clarke 2018.

16 Xi 2017.

17 CGTN 2023. Central Asian countries defer to China on the matter of Xinjiang: Primiano 2023.

18 The State Council Information Office 2019. This is not limited to Xinjiang. As Hung (2023) notes, “In official policy speeches, ‘security’ has become the most frequently uttered word, eclipsing ‘economy.’”

19 See Starr 2005 and Friedrichs 2017 for a history of the Tarim Basin (now known as Xinjiang) area and Sino-Uyghur relations.

20 Byler 2022.

21 The majority of Uyghurs identify as Turkic Muslims.

22 Ibid.

23 Leibold 2020; Byler 2022.

24 Rippa and Carson 2023.

25 Byler, 2023.

26 Schaefer and Hauge 2023.

27 Rippa 2020; Zhang et al. 2018.

28 Karl 2020; Andreas 2009; Li 2009 for China as a capitalist economy; O'Brien and Primiano 2020 on Xinjiang in BRI. Additionally, Branko Milanovic in his 2019 book Capitalism, Alone defines China’s economic system as “Political Capitalism,” where a highly technocratic political elite must ensure high economic growth rates to maintain legitimacy while grappling with a discretionary system that allows members to seek personal gain which causes inequality-increasing corruption.

29 Xie & Zhou 2014. The Gini coefficient increased from 32.5 in 1993 to 46.5 in 2016. See Chen 2020.

30 These five concepts are innovation (创新), coordination (协调), greenness (绿色), openness (开放), and sharing (共享).

31 Qi 2015.

32 Compilation and Translation Bureau 2016.

33 Compilation and Translation Bureau 2016.

34 The People’s Government of Fujian Province 2021.

35 Wu 2000.

36 Wu 2000. And as one reviewer, Dr. Robert Shepherd, acutely noted, the [Steel] Production and Conservation Corps was a sort of forerunner to the BRI in Xinjiang.

37 钢铁产业是国民经济的重要基础产业,是国家经济和社会发展水平、综合实力的重要标志 ; the Central Government of the People’s Republic of China 2014.

38 Andreas 2009.

39 On the international, territorial character of BRI, cf. Akhter 2018, Lee et al. 2018.

40 Bluhm et al. 2018.

41 Worldsteel 2020.

42 Zhao and Ren 2021. “A-shares” are those of mainland China-based companies that trade on the two Chinese stock exchanges, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE).

43 Dong et al. 2019. Baosteel Enterprise merged with another SOE, Wuhan Iron and Steel, in 2016 to form China Baowu Steel Group.

44 Price et al. 2007.

45 Zhang 2012; cf. Ni et al 2021.

46 The banking sector is heavily influences by the state, where loans in the formal banking system largely serve public enterprises rather than private companies (Tsai 2015).

47 Ni et al. 2021.

48 Constructsteel 2022.

49 Jamali et al. 2023

50 Ni et al. 2021.

51 Valin Group, the one non-eastern steel enterprise, is based in Hunan, in central China. None of China’s top ten steel producers are based in or associated with western China.

52 Metallurgical Information Equipment Network 2023.

53 The State Council Information Office 2014.

54 Tiemengguan 2022.

55 Bao 2018. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp still exists, with Xi Jinping emphasizing its role in maintaining stability in the region to ensure the success of the BRI.

56 Chen et al. 2022.

57 Lauridsen posits that BRI infrastructure initiatives allow for the internationalization of relevant state-owned enterprises along with the expansion of economic interests: Lauridsen 2020.

58 Ye 2019.

59 Nathan 1973; Dittmer and Wu 1995; Hillman 2010; Ho 2012; Fang et al. 2019.

60 Hillman 2010. As one reviewer noted: since “different factions in the CCP are linked to control of different industries, … part of the BRI process is about allocating contracts to SOEs in the context of this factional reality.” We thank the reviewer for emphasizing this point.

61 Dittmer and Wu 1995

62 Fang et al. 2019.

63 The State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2021.

64 The People’s Government of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China 2021; The State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2017. It is reported that under Ma Xingrui’s leadership suppression of Uyghurs has eased in comparison to when Chen Quanguo was in charge, although Ma has continued his predecessor’s “anti-terrorism” policies. There is speculation that Chen Quanguo was removed due to criticism from the international community, but no Party censure has occurred (See Kumakura 2023).

65 Hillman 2010.

66 Steenberg and Rippa 2019.

67 The Central Government of the People’s Republic of China, 2017.

68 Ma 2021.

69 Dan 2021.

70 Xilong 2019; Dan 2021. SOE employees do not necessarily need to be party members, but all managerial and executive positions in SOEs are held by party members (see Wang 2022).

71 Xinjiang Morning News 2017.

72 Van Aken and Lewis 2015.

73 Fischer 2005.

74 Hoh 2005. Simultaneous to the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was a sharp reduction in Tibetan representation in public employment, from seventy percent in 2002 to just below fifty percent in 2003 (Fischer 2005). Critics claim that the Chinese government uses the immigration of Han Chinese into ethnic regions to assert control in places like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. Cf. Tsering 2017.

75 Barnett 1998.

76 Fischer 2021. Between the 2010-2020, the Han Chinese population in Tibet rose 6.1% compared to Tibetan’s 1.9%, but Han Chinese still only represent 12% of the population. On migration to Tibet, see Yeh (2019).

77 On red engineers, see Andreas 2009. For instance, in addition to leadership within BRI governing bodies, Peng and Callais (2021) show that the party secretary of XUAR between 2016-2021 (and party secretary of Tibet 2011-2015), Chen Quanguo (陈全国)—Henan native, Han Chinese, Wuhan University of Technology alum with a major in management science and engineering (Xinhua News Agency 2017)—enacted policies meant to increase both income and social coercion, but only managed to accomplish the latter.

78 Yu 2023.

79 Gao 2023; Xinhua News 2023. One of the current deputy secretaries, Erken Tuniyaz, is Uyghur, as is the vice-chairman of the People’s Government of the Autonomous Region, Yusu Fujiang Maimeti.

80 The Statistics Bureau of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region lists this as a 16.2 percent increase; however, calculating the increase with the population numbers shows a fourteen percent increase.

81 Statistics Bureau of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region 2021.

82 Fischer 2021.

83 One of the core development ideals of the Silk Road Economic Belt in the Urumqi International Land Port is “gathering goods, building [industrial] parks, and gathering industries” (集货、建园、聚产业). See Xinjiang Daily 2023. While it cannot be said every manufacturer in Xinjiang is part of the BRI, even in government documents what constitutes a BRI project and which companies participate in the BRI is vague at best.

84 Hoshur 2020; Niyaz 2024.

85 While regional inequality has increased, Xinjiang’s GRP roughly doubled between 2012 and 2022.

86 Clarke 2020.

87 Roberts 2018; Steenberg and Rippa 2019.

88 Lai 2021.

89 Harvey 2001.