Tom Harper, Doctoral researcher, University of Surrey
Feb 25, 2020
Iraq is an example of how recent instability in American-Middle Eastern relations has opened the door for China to expand its influence in the region via investment projects and an exploitation of local politics.
Steven Yang Yue Heng, Yenching Scholar, Peking University.
Feb 13, 2020
China’s rich trove of ancient wisdom expands the imagination about global governance. Its perspective deserves a place at the table. After asking what our current world is, we must not forget to ask ourselves what the future world could be.
Patrick Mendis, Visiting Professor of Global Affairs, National Chengchi University
Joey Wang, Defense Analyst
Dec 18, 2019
The US and the West can excoriate China all it wants on China’s debt traps, lack of transparency, and pernicious diplomacy. But unless the US and the west come up with better solutions, that dirt road, for the developing world, is still a dirt road.
Kemel Toktomushev, Research Fellow, University of Central Asia
Dec 17, 2019
China has gifted security technology to a number of foreign nations, stretching from Ecuador in South America to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Whether such technologies are part of China’s BRI efforts to construct ‘a community of common destiny’ or are backed by some other ulterior motive is unclear.
Adnan Aamir, Journalist
Oct 29, 2019
Due to Pakistan’s flawed policies, Iran has become the new favorite BRI country of China in the South Asian and Middle Eastern region.
Lily Hartzell, Freelance Journalist based in Beijing
Aug 06, 2019
China has the potential to help countries all over the world leapfrog over coal, but so far it has fallen short, contradicting the green rhetoric China has repeatedly used to describe BRI.
Richard Burchill, Director of Research and Engagement for TRENDS Research & Advisory, UAE
Jun 11, 2019
The Belt and Road Initiative is slowly evolving from a mere label describing various ad hoc projects into a formal institution. The Second Belt and Road Forum underscores progress in creating multilateral architecture.
Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation
May 27, 2019
The second Belt and Road forum showed that despite persistent challenges, the initiative is an evolving one and will continue to gain international support. However, its success will depend on its ability to integrate and reconcile an increasing number of actors and interests.
Yasheng Huang, Professor, MIT’s Sloan School of Management
May 27, 2019
Critics often claim that China is using its massive “Belt and Road Initiative” as a form of coercive “debt-trap diplomacy” to exert control over the countries that join its transnational infrastructure investment scheme. This risk, as Deborah Brautigam of John Hopkins University recently noted, is often exaggerated by the media. In fact, the BRI may hold a different kind of risk – for China itself.
Teresa Kennedy, Master's student at Peking University's Yenching Academy in Beijing
May 17, 2019
It is impossible to predict the full environmental impact of the Belt and Road Initiative, so it is critical that Chinese authorities take full advantage of every opportunity to consciously build a greener Belt and Road.