Review: High-Speed Empire: Chinese Expansion and the Future of Southeast Asia (by Will Doig)

 My Rating: 4 stars

I came across this book when I was browsing through NetGalley awhile back ago and when I found out it was about China’s One Belt One Road initiative, I was instantly curious.  Being from Hong Kong, l try to keep a close pulse on current events unfolding in the region and over the past year, one of the most talked about subjects in the city (aside from the raging debates over education, housing, sovereignty, etc.) has been China’s super-ambitious One Belt One Road project and what its impact would be on not just China and HK, but also Southeast Asia as a whole.  Prior to reading this book, I had only a very basic concept of what One Belt One Road was – essentially a high-speed railway from China to various countries in Southeast Asia.  Even though I had read many of the news reports about the project, the information was too scattered, which made it  difficult for me to wrap my mind around the scope and magnitude of the project.  It wasn’t until I read this book that I was truly able to understand what the One Belt One Road project entailed and more importantly, the implications the project has as it relates to China’s ambitions and expansion plans in Asia (and, to some extent, the rest of the world).

This book was amazingly well-written in a way that was engaging and easy to understand.  I appreciate the amount of detail that the author Will Doig used in the book, providing for us not just a simple definition of what One Belt One Road is, but also delves into its background and inception from historical, cultural, financial, political perspectives and beyond.  One of the things I liked most about this book is that it didn’t just look at the project from China’s perspective, but also explored the role of some of the “key players” in the project – specifically Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore.  This is a perspective that is rarely brought up in the reports from mainstream media so for me, learning about the relationship these countries have with the project as well as its impact on them was a real eye-opener.  I learned a lot from reading this book and it helped me put a lot of the articles I had read previously into better perspective.  I also appreciate that the author kept the narrative objective, with plenty of examples and factual information, yet relayed in a way that didn’t feel like I was simply reading a news report – definitely no easy feat considering the various perspectives explored here.

For those who are interested in understanding more about China affairs and why the One Belt One Road initiative – however ambitious and superfluous of a project it might seem on the surface – is so important to China and its long-range expansion goals, this book is the perfect read.  It is very short (a little shy of 100 pages) yet is tremendously informative and written in a way that makes the otherwise drab subject matter interesting.  I found this to be a fascinating read that is definitely recommended!

Received ARC from Columbia Global Reports via NetGalley