Via South China Morning Post, an article on a new China-Laos railway that some believe is an important piece in the greater prize of infrastructure access to Southeast Asia: In southwestern China’s Yunnan province, there is great fanfare around the construction of a mega-railway link to neighbouring Laos, Southeast Asia’s only landlocked country and one of its least developed. […]
Read more »Via War On The Rocks, commentary on an asymmetric U.S. foreign assistance strategy that draws on its natural strengths: Beijing’s One Belt One Road project is an aggressive attempt to expand Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Indeed, Chinese President Xi Jinping calls it “a project of the century.” But for Washington to respond head-on, trying to match it […]
Read more »Courtesy of Foreign Policy, commentary on how – as Sri Lanka shows – when it comes to Chinese debt, small states have agency and great powers have responsibilities: In the last few years, the question of whether China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is predatory has been ripe for debate, with some arguing the loans Beijing […]
Read more »Via Silk Road Briefing, an OpEd on China’s Belt and Road Initiative: China’s moves into Africa are in fact a great case study into how the Belt & Road Initiative actually works. While most of the media commentary has been on the infrastructure, there is rather a lot more at play. In this article, I […]
Read more »Via The Frontier Post, an article on China’s growing influence in Central Asia and the Caspian region: The collapse of the Soviet Union allowed China to envision a land-based trade and energy network that would be free from dependence on Russia or the United States. Now, amid conflicts in the South China Sea and Taiwan […]
Read more »Via The Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), commentary on China’s Digital Silk Road: Former U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson’s call to create “situations of strength” is reemerging as a compass for U.S. foreign policy. But that phrase also aptly describes the challenge that China’s global economic activities present, especially in developing and emerging […]
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