One Road, Many Dreams: China’s Bold Plan to Remake the Global Economy by Daniel Drache, A.T. Kingsmith, and Duan Qi

AuthorXiao Alvin Yang
Date01 March 2021
Published date01 March 2021
DOI10.1177/0020702021994602
Subject MatterBook Reviews
of International Organizations: Between Normalization and Containment makes an
unparalleled contribution to understanding the international politics of the
COVID-19 pandemic. It would be little exaggeration to say that we cannot fully
appreciate the implications of the present moment without this book.
ORCID iD
Michael P. A. Murphy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9523-4402
Daniel Drache, A.T. Kingsmith, and Duan Qi
One Road, Many Dreams: China’s Bold Plan to Remake the Global Economy
London: Bloomsbury China, 2019. 288 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-91239-204-9, $28 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Xiao Alvin Yang (xiaoalvinyang@gmail.com), University of Kassel, Hessen,
Germany
Will the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) transform the current global economy? In
One Road, Many Dreams: China’s Bold Plan to Remake the Global Economy,
Daniel Drache, A.T. Kingsmith, and Duan Qi argue that the BRI will not only
challenge the existing economic order but the political one as well. They bluntly
assert that the BRI is transforming our world in ways that surpass the Marshall
Plan, not only in scale but also in imagination. The book also offers a timely,
broad, and balanced overview of the BRI. The main issue under investigation is
whether China can develop sustainable and robust governance practices in the BRI
framework. Using a political economy perspective, the authors aim to provide a
comparative framework, capturing the scale and evaluating the likelihood of suc-
cess of BRI projects worldwide.
This book is written in a highly accessible and lucid manner by two Canadian
scholars and a Chinese economist (a former visiting professor in Canada). It thus
offers a uniquely Canadian perspective on the BRI. It also differs from many
books on the BRI that either praise or demonize it. Instead, the authors try to
strike a balanced view by wrestling with both the pro-BRI and anti-BRI perspec-
tives in mainstream discourses. Given their unique Canadian angle and Canada’s
detachment from these BRI projects, the authors may have the advantage of offer-
ing a more balanced view of the BRI.
The authors try to theoretically unpack the BRI in multiple ways, combining
David Harvey’s concept of “spatial f‌ix,” Edward Said’s “imagined geographies,”
Paul Krugman’s “geography of trade,” E.P. Thompson’s “narrow ledge of con-
tractual law,” and Joseph Nye’s concept of “soft power” (xxvi). For instance, the
authors use the idea of the “narrow ledge of contractual law” to describe China’s
bilateral contracts with countries, which shield it from responsibility by leaving
(2019): 182–210; and Christian Kreuder-Sonnen and Tine Hanrieder, “WHO decides on the excep-
tion? Securitization and emergency governance in global health,” Security Dialogue, 45, no. 4
(2014): 331–348.
Book Reviews 173

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