Chinese investments under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have accelerated throughout Asia in recent years, introducing new economic and political forces into host countries' domestic political spaces. This study explores the effects of the BRI on an aspect of host country domestic politics that has received little attention to date: the strategic transformation of BRI investment projects into ethnic issues by political actors and the receptiveness of voters to this process. This study leverages interview data and an original survey of 1,308 Malaysian voters collected over five months of fieldwork in Malaysia. It employs qualitative techniques as well as a set of two conjoint experiments to identify the process through which BRI projects become domestic ethnic issues and to isolate how Malaysian voters use ethnic cues to guide their preferences on investment projects and candidates. The results find strong effects of the ethnic and national origins of investment projects and of respondents' own ethnic identity in determining Malaysian voters' preferences for investments and candidates. These results hold important insights for scholars of ethnic politics, international relations, and observers of growing Chinese influence in countries that receive BRI funds.
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