Sorry but, in this example at least, it is equivalent.

Both use and BEGIN are executed at compile time, but only when the compiler reach their position. So:

use strict;
use warnings;

my %test_hash = ( a => { b=> 'c' } );
print Dumper %test_hash;

BEGIN{require Data::Dumper; Data::Dumper->import}
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gives the same error as above where

use strict;
use warnings;

my %test_hash = ( a => { b=> 'c' } );
print Dumper(%test_hash);

BEGIN{require Data::Dumper; Data::Dumper->import}
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works, for exactly the same reason.