In the Wake of One Belt One Road: Transplanting and Translating Chinese Planning and Policy Laws, Standards and Ideas to Belt and Road Nations

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the Chinese government has, inspired by the historical role its nation played as a central hub in the Silk Road, adopted a very extensive One Belt One Road investment programme, aimed at improving its transport links over land, sea, and the internet to strengthen relationships with certain nations—the so-called Belt and Road (B&R) countries, many of which can be found in Asia, Africa, and Europe. These investments aim to improve the quality of urban and infrastructure development and to contribute to both economic growth figures and the sustainable use of natural resources. Because China acts as a donor of finance and knowledge, this also increases its grasp and impact on these B&R nations. One of the ways in which this impact is felt is through the export of planning and policy ideas and institutions. This Special Issue is aimed at delineating the impact these Chinese investments have on B&R countries in general and examining their organizational and institutional effects in particular. It aims to collect theoretical and empirical studies that contribute to developing a better understanding of the institutional impact of adopting Chinese policy and planning institutions and ideas in Belt and Road countries. What are the goals underlying the transplantation and translation of such laws, standards, and ideas outside China? How does the adoption process work and what are the social, economic, environmental, political, institutional, and organizational effects of these adoption processes?

Until fairly recently, it was Western countries that exported their institutions, standards, and ideas globally. Much of that process and the consequences have been examined in the literature on policy transfer, legal transplantation, policy translation, and institutional bricolage. Much less is known on the stakes and impact of the more recent developments leading to increasing Chinese planning and policy impact on the world.

For this Special Issue, researchers are encouraged to submit papers that contribute to the literature by proposing theoretical and empirical insights into the following topics:

• Theoretical state-of-the-art contributions on policy transfer, legal transplantation, policy translation, institutional bricolage, and similar approaches and their relevance to the export of Chinese planning and policy institutions;
• Empirical state-of-the art contributions on the objectives, stakes, and implementation of One Belt One Road policies outside China (both from Chinese and B&R nations’ perspectives) and their social, economic, and environmental impacts;
• Empirical descriptions of B&R investment programmes, their implementation, and their effects;
• Empirical descriptions of transplantation, transfer, translation, and bricolage processes in which Chinese institutions, standards, and ideas are imported to B&R nations;
• Evaluative assessment of B&R investment programmes, seen in light of their broader sustainability goals, such as GDP growth, ecological civilization, carbon emissions, and ecological footprint;
• Theoretical and empirical reflections on how the regime shift from a Washington consensus to a Beijing consensus on recipes for economic development affects the geopolitics of urban and infrastructure development.

Prof. Dr. Martin De Jong
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• One Belt One Road investment
• China, Belt & Road nations
• institutional transplantation
• policy translation
• regulation
• policy frameworks