(iPoster) Integrated Fragmentation in Chinese and Japanese Railway Exports in Indonesia

• In Event: Poster Session: Various Interesting Foreign Policy

Abstract

This paper examines the domestic policy coordination processes underlying China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Japan’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (PQI). Existing scholarship often restricts analysis to the state level, overlooking the roles of domestic actors, such as firms in shaping policy processes. They focus on the role of state institutions as the ones driving infrastructure export and take the agency of domestic actors, as given. This study addresses this conceptual and empirical gap by highlighting the fragmented yet integrated nature of decision-making in domestic policy making in China and Japan. Using a comparative analysis, we advance the concept of ‘integrated fragmentation’ to describe how the state and business reach consensus despite policy fragmentation, through formal and informal processes involving consensus-building, signal-sending, and bargaining. Our analysis reveals how both China and Japan's state institutions learn to use market mechanisms, such as profit identification, alongside traditional bureaucratic tools, to overcome fragmentation and drive infrastructure export. The deployment of market mechanisms demonstrated the state’s ability to go beyond traditional forms of control, such as institutional encroachment and administrative orders. Using China and Japan’s rail export as case studies, namely the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway Project and Jakarta Mass-Rapid Transit Project, this paper demonstrates how state institutions overcome fragmentation and use market mechanisms to drive infrastructure export. We conclude that integrated fragmentation allows for simultaneous bargaining and cooperation, driving domestic economic goals while navigating international rivalries.

Authors

• Caixia Mao, Columbia University

• Karl Yan, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen