China's technical expertise is being touted as a new vehicle for progress on the contested global Belt and Road

Chinese entrepreneurs like Jia have spread their technical expertise around the world, from growing crops in Africa to managing traffic in the Philippines. It is an emerging growth area under the initiative that once prioritized infrastructure to boost foreign trade.

This spread of expertise – a departure from giant, debt-laden projects of the past such as railways and seaports – also aims to burnish China's global image while opening up valuable new markets in which Chinese companies can grow.

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Technology transfers have always been officially part of China's Belt and Road plan, which spans about 150 nations, but analysts say these types of exchanges are becoming increasingly important on China's priority list.

“China now prefers to slowly move away from infrastructure investments that have been the norm for the last decade or so,” said a statement from Beijing-based consultancy Development Reimagined. “The Belt and Road partners and China want established projects to start generating expected economic returns. In this context, the transfer of knowledge and skills is also important.”

Recent cases include the Philippine city of Davao agreeing to accept Chinese expertise in transportation planning last year as part of a deal organized by the Asian Development Bank.

Their project will establish a public bus transportation system with modern electric vehicles and reliable schedules in Davao, the largest Philippine city outside Metro Manila, designed to make rides more comfortable while reducing pollution, according to the development bank.

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China's Belt and Road, 10 years later

China's Belt and Road, 10 years later

The sharing of technical expertise has become particularly evident in Africa in recent years, said Development Reimagined.

For example, a Shanghai-based research center has developed a water-saving rice to improve food self-sufficiency amid droughts in parts of Africa, the Chinese city government said on its website. It added that the Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center's technology could be ready for use in Kenya this year after six years of testing.

In Nigeria, the Development Reimagined team says, Chinese rice-growing experts are training African farmers to increase production under “suboptimal” conditions. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 70 percent of Nigerians farm, mostly at a subsistence level.

The Wara Agricultural Park, a farm operated by China's Green Agricultural Development Company in Nigeria's Kebbi state, is hiring Chinese experts to teach rice-growing techniques, Xinhua reported in 2021. A lack of technology, money and social stability makes rice cultivation difficult in the country, despite the Abundance of land has been lost, said the party's mouthpiece.

According to Development Reimagined, China “continued to send agricultural experts” to Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda last year to provide technical assistance on crop production and pest control.

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Jia, for his part, led a team that combined one type of corn for seven East African countries – a boost for local farmers hit by crop disasters. His efforts helped the 74-year-old become chairman of the Chinese branch of the African Academy of Sciences.

After collecting 1,566 varieties of corn seeds back to China in 2005, Jia developed and released higher-yielding varieties of corn that, by crossing native and African varieties, produced up to 1,500 kg (3,300 pounds) per mu (0.07 hectare, 0.16 acres) annually ) plant. Much of it was used in China, increasing national food security.

Feng Xuejie, director of the Institute of Tropical Fruit Trees at the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said: “I was invited to Thailand to take part [Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s] I have clearly stated in a durian forum that China's durian industry will not have an impact on the Southeast Asian market. Rather, our goal is to introduce our own cultivation techniques to promote agricultural reciprocity between the two regions.”

According to Feng, who is also a researcher at the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, his team plans to work with the Durian Association in Thailand to build fertilizer production facilities to combat some of the viruses commonly found in tropical fruits.

In the area of ​​medical care, Chinese hospitals have partnered with 46 partners in 41 African countries since 2015, the consultancy said. Most recently, the Walvis Bay Hospital in Namibia signed a cooperation agreement with the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in November.

“China, through its [belt and road] By collaborating with ASEAN countries in the agricultural sector, more advanced rice seeds can be exported to generate profits while enriching China's local varieties,” Feng added.

Urban planning and transportation improvements, expertise in renewable energy such as solar and wind power, and the development of batteries for electric vehicles are expected to highlight China's offshore expertise, said Eduardo Araral, an associate professor of public policy at the National University of Singapore.

“At some point, I think there’s a limit to how much hardware you can deploy,” he said.

These deals boost Beijing's efforts to make the second decade of its 11-year Belt and Road project “small and beautiful,” with fewer financial risks or pollution allegations that have caused tensions in the past, analysts said.

“If you will, such a move towards more value-added exports represents a safer route to expanding the Silk Road,” said Naubahar Sharif, head of public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

“It shows that China has arrived, that we don't just use our cheap labor to build roads and lay tracks – we have value-added knowledge,” he said.

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From the beginning, China has shared its expertise on the Silk Road, including techniques to improve grain and rice stability, said Wang Yong, a professor at Peking University's School of International Studies. Because of the small but mighty mandate, such efforts are now likely to be expanded, particularly in countries with a relative lack of technical expertise, he said.

“This aspect of the Silk Road will definitely increase,” Wang said. “The amount of shared expertise will simply increase.”

Agricultural aid goes back even further, to the early 2000s, and since then the Chinese government-backed Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center in Africa has introduced agricultural techniques to 22 countries on the continent.

And in Central Asia, the state-run Global Times newspaper said in September, Chinese “technology and experience” in environmental monitoring could give local people the “expertise” to build hydroelectric power plants and photovoltaic systems.

An 800-megawatt (MW) solar energy project being developed by PowerChina Guizhou Engineering in Qatar will involve sharing technical expertise, according to the Middle East country's consulate in Hong Kong.

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China announces $3.8 billion expansion of Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia

China announces $3.8 billion expansion of Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia

And an arm of Chinese photovoltaics company Trina Solar will provide “close support at every step” of a Qatar-based solar power supply contract – starting with product design before sales, the consulate said.

According to the chairman's statement at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in October 2023, China and several Belt and Road partners plan to cooperate at sea on “harmonization of marine technology standards and marine technology transfers.”

Individual Chinese contractors will find that jobs abroad give them more credibility outside of China when it comes to established Western consulting brands, Sharif said.

An expertise-led phase of the New Silk Road risks leaving China stuck in the developing world, Sharif said. Wealthier nations would seek bids from the world's leading providers of expertise – who may or may not be Chinese – and have enough money to select the best.

Most experts involved in the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa tend to rely on the government's pockets. Jia Yinsuo, agricultural scientist

And as China becomes increasingly known for its technical know-how, it must face the same criticism from the West that it receives for other parts of the Silk Road, Sharif said.

Previous phases of the Belt and Road project had raised fears that small, impoverished countries would find it difficult to repay project loans.

As China launches new Belt and Road projects in Africa today, it could create joint ventures as “conditions of payment” for help from the Chinese side, Development Reimagined said.

Other exchanges of expertise may be rewarded indirectly, for example through access to a host country's natural resources or political support for China in international organizations.

“My projects in Africa are not about financial gain,” Jia said. “Most experts involved in the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa rely more on the government’s pockets, and China is doing this to create a better image for itself as a world power.”

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In 2014, Jia Hebei founded Richard Agricultural Science & Technology, which helps implement Belt and Road projects in Africa.

“China has always emphasized capacity building – teaching someone to fish – in its overall development cooperation strategy with African countries,” said Development Reimagined.

Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis Hong Kong, said China's approach to introducing Belt and Road expertise is more due to the limited scope for overseas investment given slowing economic growth and the inability and reluctance of developing countries to take on debt to be attributed to the pandemic shocks.

“China is also concerned about credit risk as, despite the geopolitical importance of some projects, the collateral may not be worth or profitable after all,” he said. “It is still likely that China will win, but not in the old way.

“Chinese state-owned enterprises will continue to be the main force in implementation and related business opportunities.”