Prof. Min YE Publishes New Book: The Belt Road and Beyond

Professor Min Ye‘s new book – The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China:1998-2018 – has just been published by Cambridge University Press and now available for orders.

In this new book, Prof. Ye, Associate Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, conducts a detailed process analysis of BRI and two prior grand strategies in China. Additionally, it includes a detailed analysis of policymaking in Beijing, as well as implementation/interpretation by local governments and companies. 

From 1998 to 2018, China had three political-economic crises, resulting in bureaucratic paralysis. It was at such junctures that China’s leadership launched initiatives, like the Western Development Program, that mobilized state and market actors to expedite globalization and revive economic growth. In The Belt Road and Beyond, Min Ye reevaluates the common tendency to attribute China’s Belt and Road to individual leaders’ strategic ambitions, using state-mobilized globalization as a comparative framework and investigative tool to understand Chinese capitalism. State-mobilized globalization has helped sustain China’s high growth economy and social-political stability, while also sparking some political backlash. In order to succeed in globalization, she argues, China’s state mobilization must readapt to global circumstances. She sheds light on the tactics China used to spring from a crisis-stricken middle economy to a formidable global power, implicating not only China, but also the world.

A  review of the book by Margaret M. Pearson, University of Maryland, states:

‘This excellent book shows in detail how China’s domestic politics, especially the government’s need to respond to economic crisis, have been a major motivation for China’s overseas economic activities over many years. The Belt Road and Beyond will serve as a major guide to understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative.’

Min Ye is the author of Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). Her articles, “China’s Outbound Direct Investment: Regulation and Representation,” “Competing Cooperation in Asia Pacific: TPP, RCEP, and the New Silk Road,” and “Conditions and Utility of Diffusion by Diasporas” have appeared in Modern China Studies (2013), Journal of Asian Security (2015), and Journal of East Asian Studies (2016).