High modernism in a small country: China "develops" Laos

[Extract] China under President Xi Jinping is not only rising. It is reaching out. An array of Chinese initiatives, vigorously pursued, are carrying the country’s economic and political presence throughout Southeast Asia and to the broader world. Beijing’s massive Belt and Road Initiative (bri) has begun building and financing physical infrastructure westward by land and sea from China, across Southeast, South, and Central Asia, all the way to Europe. In 2017 negotiations were underway to upgrade China’s 2002 Free Trade Agreement (ftA) with the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (AseAn). By 2017 China could count 19 ftAs underway between itself and other countries or regions — 14 “signed and implemented” plus five “under con-struction.”2 China has greatly enlarged its regional financial footprint as well, by innovating the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (Aiib), partly meant to finance the bri, and a New Development Bank jointly with Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa. Headquartered respectively in Beijing and Shanghai, they began operations in 2015.