Jakarta–Bandung High-Speed Rail Project in China–Indonesia Cooperation: Domestic Constraints and Policy Bottlenecks through the Narrative–Implementation Gap

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Jakarta–Bandung High-Speed Railway (JBHSR) is often interpreted as a geopolitical instrument of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Yet strategy-centered accounts tend to understate how host-country dynamics shape project trajectories and outcomes. Most existing studies treat the JBHSR either as an overseas extension of China’s political influence or as a flagship of Sino–Indonesian strategic cooperation, leaving host-country drivers of implementation and performance underexamined. Using within-case process tracing, this article reconstructs the project’s evolution and identifies the main sources of implementation slippage. It shows that major cost overruns and delays are primarily associated with land acquisition bottlenecks, financing constraints, and legal disputes within Indonesia. These findings suggest that once implemented in partner countries, BRI projects often undergo substantial local adaptation. The viability of such projects therefore hinges on the host country’s institutional environment at least as much as on the lender’s strategic intentions.