The Belt and Road Podcast

In the rapidly evolving context of a world impacted by the novel corona virus, Johan van de Ven discusses travel bans, material aid and donations, and border restrictions between China and Belt and Road Initiative partner countries. He focuses particularly on incidents of anti-Chinese discrimination in Moscow, material assistance to China given by countries from Thailand to Turkey, and stalls in C...

Oyuna Baldakova, a PhD Candidate at the Free University of Berlin, shares her research on Chinese investment and Belt and Road developments in Russia (Lake Baikal, Siberia) and Central Asia. She explores how conflicting interests among local elites and domestic political leaders have fueled anti-Chinese sentiments and protests against BRI projects, as well as the implications of China's invol...

Prof. Dr. Linda Tjia explains the costs and benefits, the links and disconnects, and the domestic and global implications of the China-Europe Freight Train Initiative which connects multiple areas of Western China through Central Asia all the way to Europe. Having worked in the railway sector before her academic career, Linda walks Erik and Juliet through Chongqing business dealings with HP, trade...

Juliet discusses the book "Last Days of the Mighty Mekong" with author Brian Eyler, Senior Fellow and Director of The Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia Program. Brian shares insights into the development politics of China's (and other countries') hydropower dam construction, the environmental impacts of dams, and the resulting shifts in the day-to-day reality of lives of communit...

In this episode, Erik talks with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellow at NYU Journalism Institute -  Lili Pike about China's involvement in Cambodia's energy sector, including an incredible story of a private Chinese furniture manufacturer who bought a closed-down 600MW dirty coal plant from a Chinese SOE and is now moving it piece by piece to Cambodia Read Lili's China Dialogu...

More and more countries have signed on to China's Belt and Road Initiative, but "the increase in political partners has not led to a comparable increase in commercial activity." Cecilia Joy Perez discusses contracting amounts of capital invested along the BRI despite expanding formal participation, which she attributes to shrinking foreign exchange reserves and shifts in the sectors...

Breaking from a dominant focus on national and international scales, Dr. Tim Summers discusses how the Belt and Road works through sub-national institutions, builds upon regional scale development models, and uses provincial trade and political networks within China to expand abroad. Dr. Tim Summers is faculty at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Centre for China Studies. Check out Tim&ap...

On this episode of the Belt and Road Podcast, Erik Myxter-iino speaks with former MacroPolo Summer Associate Lauren Baker - about her article that looks at differing opinions of governmental and non-governmental elite opinion of Chinese investment in Mozambique.  Read Lauren's article "Bridging Perceptions: China in Mozambique " here: https://macropolo.org/analysis/china-mozambique-...

On episode 19, Dr. Gustavo Oliveira talks about Chinese agribusiness investments in Brazil, the rising importance of the soy trade between the two countries, and the ways domestic and international business interests have fanned the flames of Sinophobia for strategic gains. Dr. Oliveira is a Brazilian scholar and activist and an Assistant Professor of Global & International Studies at Universi...

In this episode, Erik and Juliet interview Yunnan Chen (PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) about two Chinese-built railway projects, one in Kenya and one in Ethiopia. The comparison between the two cases provides reflections on how host countries negotiate over debt funding for infrastructural projects, and the logistical and cultural challenges the developers...

From Vietnam to Myanmar, how does criticism of Chinese investment serve local politics, and how does it distract from broader environmental struggles? The Belt and Road Podcast's new co-host Juliet Lu welcomes Vanessa Lamb and Nga Dao to discuss anti-Chinese sentiment in the hydropower sectors of Myanmar and Vietnam, highlighting some key contrasts in the histories of Chinese investment in ea...

On episode 16 we introduce our new co-host Juliet Lu! Juliet and Erik speak with China Research and Project Leader at the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University - Ma Xinyue about her latest work on the PandaPaw DragonClaw blog “Assessing China’s Most Comprehensive Response to the “debt trap”: the Belt and Road ‘Debt Sustainability Framework’ https://pandapawdragonclaw.blog/2019/07/1...

On episode 15, Erik Myxter-iino talks with Postdoctoral Fellow at the Global Development and Policy Center at Boston University -  Dr. Rebecca Ray  Rebecca was one of the co-authors of a new report published in part by BU’s GDP center - China and the Amazon: Toward a Framework for Maximizing Benefits and Mitigating Risks of Infrastructure Development. link We talk about how Chinese developmental f...

On this episode, Erik speaks with Michael Boulle -  Ph. D. Candidate at the University of Cape Town and Senior Researcher at the Cape Town-based consultancy - Change pathways.  We discuss his latest paper - The Hazy Rise of Coal in Kenya: The actors, interests, and discursive contradictions shaping Kenya’s electricity future that is featured in Volume 56 of the Energy Research and Social Science J...

On this episode, Erik Myxter-iino has a conversation with Sociology Ph. D. Candidate at Johns Hopkins University Alvin Camba about his soon-to-be-published work - Reexamining China and South-South Relations: Chinese State-backed and Flexible Private Capitals in the Philippines. In it, Alvin analyzes the different types of Chinese capitals and how they interact with different political eras in the...

This week's #beltandroadpod is all about #Kazakhstan - @emyxter spoke with PhD Candidate at Hokkaido University - Assel Bitabarova @BitabarAssel on how Kazakhstan is interacting with the Belt and Road, Chinese financing and construction of Kazakhstani infrastructure, and more. The podcast is based on Assel's latest writing in the Journal of Contemporary East Asian Studies, entitled: Unpa...

On the 10th episode of the Belt and Road Podcast, Erik sits down with Dr. Lee Jones to discuss his latest co-authored work with Zeng Jinghan in Third World Quarterly entitled: "Understanding China's Belt and Road Initiative: Beyond 'grand strategy' to a state transformation analysis". Dr. Lee Jones is a Reader in international politics in the School of Politics and Interna...

On this episode Courtney Weatherby - a research analyst with the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia and Energy, Water, & Sustainability programs - discusses the different push and pull factors that have made China become involved with nearly a quarter of all energy projects in SE Asia, including an estimated 43% of all coal projects. Furthermore we look at what China and ASEAN countries can do to...

2018 saw the creation of two new high-profile development finance agencies. In China there was the creation of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, and in America the International Finance Development Corporation.  On this episode, I speak with UPenn Ph. D. student Scott Wingo about his latest article “ Too Much Risk or Not Enough ? New Development Finance Agencies in China and...

On this episode Juliet Lu - Ph. D Candidate in the department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley -  is on the show to talk about her recent research on Chinese SOE and private firm land investment in Northern Laos. Our discussion stems from her years of extensive fieldwork in Northern Laos talking with Chinese investors, Laotian officials and locals on their experience...

On this episode I interview Charles Stevens, who as part of the New Silk Road Project (www.newsilkroadproject.com) traveled over 10,000 miles on the "Silk Road Economic Belt" in a Jeep. Along the way he interviewed different local and Chinese stakeholders who are building, analyzing and using the new Chinese financed and built infrastructure. If you are looking for more on-the-ground sto...

On this episode, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies master student Nicholas Lo talks about his field work that looked at Chinese infrastructure and natural resource investments in Myanmar, and how Chinese capital can bring specific challenges and some potential gains, to creating sustainable development outcomes in the country.  This episode is based on Nicholas' article for th...

This episode features the dynamic researcher from the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo - Ulrikke Wethal  The topic of discussion comes from her latest article: Beyond the China Factor: Challenges to backwards linkages in the Mozambican construction sector from the June 2018 edition of the Journal of Modern African Studies  Recommendations: Ulrikke: 1) Johns Hopk...

In our third episode, I am excited to feature international development consultant Xiao'Ou Zhu. Before every newspaper was using the Hambantota Port as the fearful case of China using "debt diplomacy" Xiao'Ou was doing the on-the-ground fieldwork using China Harbour's Engineering Group's role in the creation of the port as a case showing how important Chinese State Ow...

On our second episode Tom Baxter - who works in communications and focuses on the environmental impacts of Belt and Road investments at Greenpeace East Asia in Beijing - talks about his latest article for the blog Panda Paw Dragon Claw “Zooming in, Zooming out: the Frames Through Which Western Media See Belt and Road” https://pandapawdragonclaw.blog/2018/07/27/zooming-in-zooming-out-the-frames-thr...