2 | Research Design and Country Selection Our project is a systematic cross-regional analysis of the impacts of the BRI focused on Africa and Southeast Asia, incorporating interviews with key stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of BRI projects, visits to project sites, and discussions with civil society, journalists, and impacted residents. The areas of focus are (a) economic and financial, (b) political and social, and (c) regulatory and governance impacts of the BRI in developing country contexts. While the BRI also includes military or security aspects, as well as cyber, digital, and telecommunications projects, these lie outside of the scope of our analysis. After selection of countries for field visits, we conducted a review of academic literature, opensource articles, and think-pieces on the BRI globally and its impact in these specific contexts. We also held meetings with scholars, journalists, and U.S. government officials to better understand perspectives on the BRI and areas of specific concern and uncertainty regarding our project. Based on our preliminary literature review and initial meetings, we established hypotheses regarding the impact of the BRI to test through semi-structured qualitative interviews in Ethiopia and Malaysia. We reconvened as a team after the field visits to re-assess the extent to which our opinions had changed on each of our hypotheses and to develop findings from these assumptions.
Country Selection Ethiopia and Malaysia were identified as our primary focus countries for our comparative, crossregional analysis of the impact of the BRI on development, growth, and political dynamics in subSaharan Africa and Southeast Asia. We also conducted site visits and interviews in Djibouti and Singapore to provide additional insight into the role of the BRI in these regions. The Djiboutian case is also of particular note due to Djibouti’s role as Ethiopia’s gateway to trade and the BRI’s focus on connectivity, while Singapore hosts many think tanks and scholars focused on the regional impact of the BRI. The most important factors considered when selecting case studies for the report were variations and similarities across the following dimensions: - Regional variety - Timing of federal elections - Development status - Debt-to-GDP ratio - Attitudes toward China - Successful BRI loan restructuring agreement
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