The cooperation-infrastructure nexus: Translating the ‘China Model’ into Laos

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is frequently described as a ‘hard’ infrastructure programme of roads, railways, and ports. But a variety of ‘soft’ development cooperation activities—including trainings, dialogues, research, and development projects—have also been established under the banner of the BRI. We examine how this ‘soft’ cooperation works hand-in-hand with ‘hard’ infrastructure in what we call the cooperation-infrastructure nexus. This nexus works in two parallel ways: cooperation activities establish discursive frames of Chinese development as a model to follow, while also creating channels of exchange and support that validate and facilitate infrastructure investments. These investments, in turn, legitimize and often provide direct channels for further cooperation. To make this argument, we present empirical research conducted in China and Laos in two sectors: hydropower and rubber. Both expanded rapidly in China over the past three decades and are held up as models to follow; both are also the basis for cooperation and infrastructure interventions across Southeast Asia. We show that Chinese rubber and hydropower cooperation activities serve both to frame existing projects positively and facilitate future investments in those sectors in Laos. The infrastructure established on the ground, however, rarely resembles the ‘China model’ upon which it is discursively based. Instead, we find that important obstacles and contradictions arise in translating China's domestic achievements into other country contexts. Our findings show the need to consider cooperation as intertwined with infrastructure, while acknowledging the disconnect between discourses of a China model and experiences on the ground.