Abstract
Abstract This article explores the policy’s impact on cross-border integration, particularly within the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the Chinese–Kazakh borderlands. By addressing the question of how policy change affects cross-border integration, it integrates literature on border and policy studies. It employs a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative difference-in-differences analysis and qualitative case studies to examine the causal mechanism between the Belt and Road Initiative-led cross-border projects and cross-border flows, as well as local place-branding efforts in areas of Khorgos and Alashankou, which are two key border regions located between China and Kazakhstan. Findings suggest that Belt and Road Initiative’s infrastructure projects significantly increase the cross-border flow of goods, with a comparatively lesser impact on the flow of people. This indicates that policy change, through the building of cross-border projects, can enhance physical connectivity and economic exchange. Further, it reveals that local actors leverage these projects for place branding, aiming to meet regional development needs, rather than fostering sociocultural ties for people between the borderlines. This article contributes to policy and border literature by illustrating how policies are adapted in local contexts to fulfil regional concerns. It also enriches the border literature by highlighting a selective debordering process, as a Belt and Road Initiative’s outcome, where borderlands become physically porous but socioculturally impervious, reinforcing the context-dependent nature of integration processes.