Tabita Rosendal, PhD Candidate at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, has published a new research article in the Journal of Contemporary Asia. The article, titled "Promoting China's Development Model for the Hambantota International Port: Selling Shekou to Sri Lanka," examines the motivations of the Chinese Communist Party and China Merchants Group for relying on the Shekou Model in promoting – or “selling” – China’s development model in Sri Lanka.
The article describes China’s promotion of its development model through the Belt and Road Initiative and examines the case of the Hambantota International Port as an example of this approach, providing insights into the actors involved in this policy and its reception. Moreover, it bridges two strands of scholarship by bringing the Chinese domestic experimental model context into conversation with the the initiative's international implementation, shedding light on China’s global ambitions. Simultaneously, it adds to studies on the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and state-owned enterprises under the “iron triangle” framework of Party-government-business by examining the spread of the Shekou Model outside China. In this way, aside from presenting new information on the Hambantota International Port project and China's promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative, the article contributes to literature on the fragmented nature of Chinese state authority between central and provincial governments, different authorities, and ministries, i.e., “fragmented authoritarianism.”
You can read the full, open-access article on the Taylor & Francis website.