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- Title
CHINA'S MALLEABLE SOVEREIGNTY ALONG THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE: THE CASE OF THE 99-YEAR CHINESE LEASE OF HAMBANTOTA PORT.
- Authors
CARRAI, MARIA ADELE
- Abstract
Since China Merchant Port Holdings and Sri Lanka signed a 99-year Concession Agreement for the 15,000 acres of Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka in 2017 as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), media outlets and academics have used the agreement as a proof of China's new interventionist and expansionist attitude, realized through debt-trap diplomacy. China has a reputation as the stronghold of Westphalia sovereignty. However, the BRI and increased Chinese investments abroad may modify its attitude toward sovereignty. In protecting its interests and its nationals abroad, is China adopting similar legal regimes and techniques to those adopted by Western powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries-- or is China taking a different path? This article, using local media reports and interviews of important stakeholders, looks at the available sections of the Concession Agreement of Hambantota Port and contextualizes the agreement in light of international law and evolving Chinese conceptions of sovereignty. It argues that China, relying on the contested and political notion of sovereignty, is using similar legal techniques as Western powers used since the nineteenth century, and that its understanding of sovereignty continues to be malleable in order to accommodate new evolving interests. Specifically, with the unfolding of the BRI and Chinese investments abroad, China increasingly must protect its investments, property, and people outside of its sovereign borders. Although there are only a handful of cases of China encroaching upon the sovereignty of other countries, and Sri Lanka sovereignty in Hambantota is a legal fact, China, relying on the ambivalence of the international law that regulates international leases could compromise the principles of sovereign equality and non-interference.
- Subjects
HAMBANTOTA (Sri Lanka); BELT &; Road Initiative; SOVEREIGNTY; HARBORS; INTERNATIONAL law; CHINA Merchant Port Holdings (Company); FOREIGN investments; CHINESE politics &; government, 2002-
- Publication
New York University Journal of International Law & Politics, 2019, Vol 51, Issue 4, p1061
- ISSN
0028-7873
- Publication type
Article