In The News

Belt and Rebranding Initiative: Interpreter

Nora Schlenzig April 21, 2020
The Belt and Road Initiative represents a wide variety of Chinese overseas initiatives, explains Nora Schlenzig of the Lowy Institute. “The initiative itself has gone through several rounds of rebranding since its official launch by Xi Jinping in 2013,” she explains, including One Belt, One Road Initiative and New Silk Road. “Supporters see it as a long-overdue plan for global infrastructure...

How a Lifeline From China Changed Greece: Fortune

Vivienne Walt September 1, 2019
China’s investment in the historic port of Piraeus has lifted Greece’s economy and dampened populist opposition to foreign investment. “Situated at the edge of Athens – a short sail from the Middle East and Africa – the port has been a strategic jewel for nearly 2,500 years, ever since the Athenians and Spartans defeated the Persian emperor in a nearby sea battle for Mediterranean supremacy,”...

Trade War Helps China’s Belt and Road: China Brief

Chris Devonshire-Ellis August 15, 2019
The US delayed a round of tariffs scheduled for China September 1. “The simple truth is that China’s share of bilateral trade with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, coupled with increasing trade with ASEAN, is more than compensating for any US trade downturn,” explains Chris Devonshire-Ellis for China Briefing. China advises its firms to find substitute markets. Some market adjustments...

Digital BRI: Times of India

Nayan Chanda May 9, 2019
China’s Belt and Road Initiative supports a range of infrastructure projects connecting more than 60 nations. The digital component could be the most influential part of China’s new trade and transportation hubs, explains Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal Online, in his column for the Times of India. “While the US keeps issuing warnings about the espionage risks of using Chinese 5G...

Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus: China’s BRI Goals

John A. Mathews January 2, 2019
China’s Belt and Road global investment strategy is financing more than $1 trillion in infrastructure development in more than 70 nations. The initiative, global in scope, is a response to the US “pivot to Asia” announced under the Obama administration, “carefully and astutely crafted to take advantage of moves by the US as the current hegemon,” explains John A. Matthews for the Asia-Pacific...

Economic Times: India-Japan Strategic Partnership

Sanjay Pulipaka November 8, 2018
Japan and India, under prime ministers Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe, continue to improve relations as a bulwark against more powerful China and develop balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. “Both premiers have invested heavily in the bilateral relationship and made sustained efforts to push their respective bureaucracies to catch up with their vision,” explains Sanjay Pulipaka for the...

The Economist: What’s in It for Belt-and-Road Countries?

April 20, 2018
Trade flourished in Central Asia until shipping routes became faster and more affordable than the Silk Road’s land routes: “many Eurasian hubs floundered,” reports the Economist. The leaders of China and many governments expect that infrastructure investments of the Belt and Road Initiative could revive the region as transport routes. But the Economist questions if the flow of trade will be one...