In the report of General Secretary Xi Jinping for the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Belt&Road was only mentioned in passing. Even in the speeches of other top politicians, the former flagship project, with which the government in Beijing has stirred up the global development discourse since 2013, hardly figures anymore. Some observers therefore already want to declare BRI dead.
Tag Archives: Digital Silk Road
Newsletter August/September 2022
CONTENTS: Posts: USA-China: Freunde verzweifelt gesucht / USA-China: Striving for friends // News: Warnung vor Abhängigkeit von Rohstoffen aus China / Die Züge rollen – trotz Krieg // Countercurrents: Proteste in Kambodscha gegen Digitale Seidenstraße // Readings: China in the Americas / Internationalisierung des chinesischen Ordnungsmodells?
Newsletter January 2022
CONTENT: Posts: Power struggles in Kazakhstan: Putting out the fuse / Military coup in Myanmar 1: Triple Catch-22 for Beijing / The „Digital Silk Road“ in Central Asia (Guest post) // News: China’s Foreign Minister as a fire fighter / Military coup in Myanmar 2: Foreign investments // Reviews: ‚Less brown’: Two reports on Green BRI Investment.
China’s „new development model“
With the ‘Dual Circulation Strategy’ (DCS), the government in Beijing has once again thrown a stone into the water to test the effects of the announcement. However, after a few critical articles, the international discussion has remained surprisingly quiet. Yet the deliberations could have far-reaching implications for further globalization and China’s leading role in it.
Newsletter June 2021
CONTENTS: Blog post: ‘Build Back Better World’, the US-copy of BRI / News: European bailout for Montenegro / Call for boycott of Myanmar’s jade industry // Readings: Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Europe in 2020 / Chinas technological influence in Southeast Asia through the Digital Silk Road / Environmental Authoritarianism: Review of ‘China goes green’ by Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro.
Myanmar: Construction Sites off the Silk Road
When China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Myanmar in January this year, he combined the announcement of vaccine supplies with offers of deepened economic cooperation. The timing of the visit was astute, coming after the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD, was re-elected for a second term in November 2020 – and two weeks before the military coup.
China’s Chernobyl?
The Corona crisis may well be “China’s Chernobyl”, suggested a columnist in the journal ‘The Diplomat’. Will China face a similar fate as the Soviet Union did five years after the nuclear disaster in the Ukraine? The Corona crisis is a serious challenge for the Beijing government. It is jeopardising its ambitions to transform the People’s Republic into a full-fledged world power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of its founding.