ABSTRACT
In order to illustrate both the political and geopolitical impacts of the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) in Southeast Asia, this chapter focuses on a few cases that display three broader trends. First, China can more easily implement MSRI infrastructure projects in less democratic states, which, by definition, have smaller ruling coalitions, whose support keeps the leadership in power and who must, therefore, be positively influenced in order to secure implementation of BRI agreements. Second, because the Chinese state fundamentally is what is promoting the BRI, China can use a broad range of foreign policy carrots (and to a lesser extent, sticks) to secure BRI projects. Third, the first two trends suggest that China can more easily target those benefits when the details of the agreements lack transparency and the few close to the leadership must win (or at least not lose) from the “win-win” relationship.
