China’s BRI in Southeast Asia present empirical research that analyzes the dynamics and implications of the Belt and Roads Initiative (BRI) for the countries of Southeast Asia. While much has been written about the BRI from a geopolitical and macro-economic perspective, the studies in this volume focus on how its economic development affects socioeconomic and cultural realities at the micro-level of everyday life in local communities.
While the BRI’s development of infrastructure such as railways, special economic zones, and ports creates opportunities for ASEAN countries in trade, engineering, agribusiness, and finance, it also poses serious and fundamental challenges to local communities, state sovereignty, the global economic order, and international legal frameworks.
The authors contend that the BRI should be examined through various perspectives, and use ethnographic methods to foreground the voices and experiences of local people to better understand the socioeconomic, political, and institutional effects of the BRI on the ground.

Yos Santasombat is professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Director, China-Southeast Asian Studies Center, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, and Senior Research Scholar, Thailand Research Fund. His English language publication includes Lak Chang: A Reconstruction of Tai Identity in Daikong (Canberra: Pandanus Books, ANU, 2001); Biodiversity, Local Knowledge and Sustainable Development (Chiang Mai: RCSD, 2003, 2014); Flexible Peasants: Reconceptualizing the Third World’s Rural Types (Chiang Mai: RCSD, 2008); The River of Life: Changing Ecosystems of the Mekong Region (Chiang Mai: Mekong Press, 2011); as well as the edited volumes Impact of China’s Rise in the Mekong Region (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) Chinese Capitalism in South-east Asia: Cultures and Practices (Palgrave Macmillan 2017), Sociology of Chinese Capitalism: Challenges and Prospects (Palgrave Macmillan 2019), and Transnational Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia: Case Studies from Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore (Springer 2022).

Kian Cheng LEE, a Singaporean, holds a Ph.D. (Social Sciences), M.A. (Southeast Asian Studies), M.Th. (Asian Christianity), M.Div., M.A. (Biblical Studies), and B.Sc. (Physics). He is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration while being affiliated with the School of Public Policy and Faculty of Social Sciences at Chiang Mai University. He is also a member of the board of the Asian Pastoral Institute Ltd. in Singapore. Kian Cheng’s research interests concern Chinese business practices, transnational entrepreneurship, politics, cultural and citizen diplomacy, and Thai religious networks. Kian Cheng has published nine research-based articles in esteemed journals including Scopus-indexed journals such as Journal of Chinese Overseas, International Journal of China Studies, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs and Identities. In addition, he has published six research-based book chapters with Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. He can be contacted at kiancheng.lee@cmu.ac.th.

Decha Tangseefa is associate professor of Political Theory, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. His research fields lie at the nexus between migration studies and border studies, focusing especially on the Thai-Myanmar borderlands, where most of his publications on the following issues have been devoted: death & atrocity; refugees; music & youth; ethnicity; marginal migrant workers; community engagement; malaria elimination; and special economic zones. His most recent publication is the English and expanded version of Light, Water and Rice Stalk: Cultural Fluency for Alterity (Kobfai Publishing Project, 2020, second edition).