China Studies Research Centre, La Trobe University
6:00pm -7:30pm Thursday 2 August
Boardroom (20.02), Level 20, La Trobe University City Campus, 360 Collins Street, Melbourne
Cost: Free
Focusing on connectivity and infrastructure construction across Eurasia and Oceans, BRI may help China play a leadership role in global development, especially after the US turned inwards. But the BRI has been more of a broad vision than a practical program. Realizing the BRI ambitions requires not only vision but also scrupulous economic planning and formidable diplomatic actions. China has yet to overcome bureaucratic opaqueness to make BRI commercially sustainable, balance its own interests with the interests of potential partners, and create the shared values, inspiring other countries to work with China. While the BRI has become an organizing concept of Chinese diplomacy, the hype surrounding BRI has exceeded the substance. If Beijing cannot overcome mammoth obstacles, BRI could become a huge white elephant leaving an enormous amount of wasted resources strewn along its path.
About the Speaker
Suisheng Zhao is Professor and Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. A Campbell National Fellow at Hoover Institution of Stanford University, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College in Maryland, Associate Professor of Government and East Asian Politics at Colby College in Maine and visiting assistant professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at University of California-San Diego, he is the founder and editor of the Journal of Contemporary China and the author and editor of more than a dozen books and several dozens articles.