China and the Belt and Road Initiative’s Role in Middle Eastern Affairs: A Consideration of Network Effects and Lock-In Dynamics

This paper explores the question of whether China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and China’s growing global interconnectivity more generally, are generating network effects and lock-in dynamics. It considers evidence that the BRI as well as the increase in China’s international interconnectivity has indeed created network effects and lock-in dynamics in several different ways, including transport infrastructure and the different components associated with the transportation of cargo such as railway gauges and types of railways. However, it also examines the ways that the BRI has not achieved network effects, due to the BRI harming relations with countries such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka.