Priority Analysis Of ASEAN Container Port Construction Investment In The Maritime Silk Road Strategic Context

With the development of the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road initiative,the trade between China and countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road has been increased,and the cooperation among these countries has been improved.Transportation infrastructure plays a leading role in the construction of the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.Most countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road are developing countries,and the shortage of transportation infrastructure has become a new challenge.Along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road,the ASEAN region has a huge development potential and broad market prospect.In order for implementing the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road initiative,China would like to improve transportation infrastructure in the ASEAN region,especially for port construction.Due to the huge capital required for port construction,the port construction investment must be carried out gradually.By selecting six ASEAN countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,this thesis aims to analyze the priority of port construction investment for these countries.The main works of this thesis are as follows:(1)Firstly,this thesis reviews the related researches on port construction investment.We find that,in the previous studies,port construction and port investment are regarded as two independent research issues.As we know,there is no research carried out on determining the priority of port construction investment for a number of countries.The thesis introduces the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road initiative,the role of ASEAN region along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,and link prediction theory used for solving our problem.(2)This thesis analyzes the maritime connectivity between China and the ASEAN region,and the port construction investment situation of the ASEAN region.Based on the economic level and the port infrastructure situation of the ASEAN region,we present an evaluation index system,which can reflect the cooperation between China and the ASEAN region on political,economic,cultural fields,etc.(3)Based on the similarity index of random walk methods applied in link prediction,a random walk method is proposed to solve the investment probability of each potential port in the ASEAN region.According to the number of times of each potential port to be visited by all random walkers,the priority of port construction investment is determined.Finally,our random walk method is verified by comparing the priorities of port construction investment of the realistic ports in Southeast Asia with those of the potential ports.Results show that several potential sites in Philippines have the priority conditions for port construction investment.