ABSTRACT
This article examines the implementation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Asia and Africa through a comparative analysis of coal-powered electricity projects in Indonesia and Zimbabwe. It challenges the prevailing narrative that the BRI represents a mutually beneficial “win-win” cooperation framework. Instead, the study argues that China employs polylateral strategies—integrating commerce, security, and diplomacy—to advance its geo-economic interests in recipient countries. These strategies are analysed through Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality. While polylateralism refers to China’s use of overlapping channels of influence—including state-owned enterprises, banks, private firms, and diplomatic institutions—governmentality elucidates how these mechanisms collectively shape infrastructure priorities, normalise asymmetrical partnerships, and guide development trajectories through indirect governance. Using a qualitative approach and grounded in this dual framework, the study contends that BRI infrastructure functions less as an equitable partnership and more as a mechanism of indirect control. The findings reveal consistent patterns across both case studies: elite capture, environmental degradation, community displacement, and benefits disproportionately favouring Chinese stakeholders. Despite differing political and institutional contexts, Indonesia and Zimbabwe illustrate how BRI projects can reinforce structural dependency, exacerbate inequality, and undermine sustainable development. This article contributes to critical debates on China’s evolving role in the Global South by interrogating the transformative potential of infrastructure diplomacy under the BRI.
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