Geoeconomics, easy money, and political opportunism: the Perils under China and Japan’s high-Speed rail competition
Geoeconomics, easy money, and political opportunism: the Perils under China and Japan’s high-Speed rail competition
复制标题
地缘经济、宽松货币和政治机会主义：中日高铁竞争下的危险
DOI：
10.1080/13569775.2020.1816626
复制
发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
S. Katada
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jessica C. Liao;S. Katada
中国和日本在东亚基础设施贷款方面展开了激烈竞争，特别是自2010年代以来。在对这种竞争的地缘政治根源的强烈关注下，这种竞争性的治国方略对较小的亚洲国家的政治经济影响很少被讨论。乍一看，借贷竞争似乎有利于借款国获得更多的财政资源。本文认为，然而，竞争性的治国方略导致了一个“容易赚钱”的难题，过于急切的债权国，在追求地缘战略目标，永久化的政治机会主义借款国。为了支持这一观点，我们考察了中日在印度尼西亚和马来西亚两个高速铁路项目上的竞争。我们的流程追踪分析解释了推动因素（来自中国和日本的宽松货币）和拉动因素（东道国政府利用宽松货币谋取政治利益的愿望）如何相互作用，以牺牲借款国的财政纪律和政府问责为代价推进两个陷入困境的项目。
ABSTRACT China and Japan have engaged in fierce competition over infrastructure lending in East Asia, particularly since the 2010s. Under the intense focus on the geopolitical roots of this competition, the political-economic effects of this competitive statecraft on the smaller Asian countries are less discussed. At first glance, lending competition seems to benefit borrowing countries through access to more financial resources. This paper argues, however, that competitive statecraft leads to an ‘easy money’ conundrum where overeager creditor countries, in pursuit of geostrategic goals, perpetuate political opportunism in borrowing countries. To support this claim, we examine China–Japan competition over two high-speed rail projects in Indonesia and Malaysia. Our process tracing analysis explains how push factors (easy money from China and Japan) and pull factors (the host government’s desire to exploit easy money for political gain) interacted to advance two troubled projects at the cost of borrowing countries’ fiscal discipline and government accountability.