The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative

Filip De Beule is Associate Professor of International Business at the Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven University. His main research interests focus on grand challenges and the interlink between international business and policy and include topics on the international location and organization of firms. Philippe De Lombaerde is Director at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) (Bruges, Belgium), and Associate Professor of International Economics at Neoma Business School (Rouen, France). His research interests include international trade, regional economic integration, comparative regionalism, and globalization and regionalization indicators. Haiyan Zhang is Associate Professor of International Business at the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at NEOMA Business School (France). His research interests include international business activities of Chinese and overseas Chinese-owned enterprises, management issues of international joint ventures in transition economies, Chinese outward FDI in Europe, EU–China FDI relations, and related issues.

Introduction - The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative: strategic responses of governments and multinational companies 1. The impact of contextual distance on the investment locations of Chinese multinationals in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative 2. Chinese institutions and international expansion within the Belt and Road Initiative: firm capabilities of Chinese companies in the European Union 3. Motives behind Sino-Japanese strategic alliances in the new energy vehicles sector in the age of the Belt and Road Initiative 4. ‘Truly a European company’: a Chinese auto maker’s strategies of Europeanization 5. Will COVID-19 bury dreams of some overland routes of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative? 6. Fighting monopolies: the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, India, and the competition for the marketplace of international development 7. Strategic priorities for regional power connectivity in Asia in the overlapping of subregional initiatives and China’s global energy interconnection 8. Strategic responses of regional economic organizations to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative: the cases of ASEAN, EAEU, and EU