Networks of the Belt and Road: The Hidden Role of Financial Brokers

Abstract

China has emerged as the world's biggest source of development finance, far out-spending traditional sources of aid. In recent years, researchers have made progress in collecting and documenting China's influence through its financing of projects all over the world; however, most of that focus has been on either the Chinese financiers or the effect of Chinese financing on its recipients. In this paper, we focus instead on the network of non-Chinese financiers who facilitate Chinese development financing. To do this, we turn an existing dataset that documents Chinese development finance into a network dataset that allows us to display and analyse the structure of relationships between financiers and recipients of loans. Using the method of social network analysis, we identify non-Chinese financiers that act as brokers in the network, facilitating relationships for financiers and recipients of Chinese development finance. The results suggest that non-Chinese entities may be holding Chinese development financing together in ways that were previously not known. In particular, private commercial banks emerge as critical actors. Our results also suggest that the top non-Chinese brokers differ in how they use their brokerage power, with some top brokers playing a more active role and others playing a more passive role. Finally, the paper shows that social network analysis can be a valuable tool to uncover structural patterns in this dataset.