키워드네트워크 분석을 활용한 중국 일대일로(OBOR) 사업에 관한 연구동향 분석

Abstract

The Chinese government has expressed commitment toward the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project, which aims to construct large-scale logistics infrastructure across an extensive region spanning Central, West, and South Asia; the Persian Gulf; the Mediterranean Sea; the Indian Ocean; Europe; and the South Pacific. Additionally, the OBOR project activities between China and other major countries are already underway. In South Korea, the OBOR project has been drawing increasing attention of the central government, local governments, and major research institutes such as those pertaining to logistics (shipping, transportation), economy, trade, politics, diplomacy, culture and so on. As OBOR would be conducted by China and several other countries, there could be diverse viewpoints highlighting the “positives,” “negatives,” “opportunities,” and “threats” of the project. Every single country associated with the OBOR project would have its own interpretation and approach. The correspondence strategies and projects derived from every single country would together constitute the OBOR project. To understand the project properly and find out the best way to cooperate, cope with, and utilize, there is a need for continuous and patient research. The research should be focused not only on the general understanding of OBOR but also on its specific projects in major countries. The purpose of this study is to identify the research trend regarding the OBOR project using SNA (social network analysis). The analysis was conducted by reviewing OBOR-related research papers published in China and South Korea as of April 2016. A total of 2,046 and 335 keywords were derived from the total keywords presented in 341 papers of China and 73 papers of Korea, respectively, for constructing a keyword network. Frequency analyses demonstrated that words such as “OBOR,” “trade,” and “cooperation” showed high frequencies in both China and Korea, while “Eurasia initiative” showed a high frequency in the Korean papers. In addition, in terms of network connection centrality, “strategy,” “China,” “cooperation,” “development,” “trade,” “international,” and “logistics” ranked high in both China and Korea. Although the difference between connection centrality and mediation centrality was not much, some mediation centrality keywords such as “AIIB” (which stands for Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) and “Eurasia” had relatively high frequencies in Korea. Analysis on close centrality demonstrated that the Chinese papers showed significant values for “capital account liberalization,” “business ethics,” and “lone wolf.” In addition, individual word networks were constructed with country names to derive keywords related to major countries, such as Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, India, Vietnam and the United States. Compared to China, South Korea had relatively insufficient studies regarding individual countries and regions.