CSC International Research Webinar Series
Date: Wednesday 12 October 2022
Time: 5.00 – 6.00pm AEST
Location: Online
About this event
The ambitious Belt and Road Initiative purportedly aims at improving regional connectivity and strengthening economic collaboration with a vision of inclusive development. The hundreds of billion dollars of worth of infrastructure projects have however acquired a reputation for human rights violations and environmental impacts for the recipient countries and drawn suspicions of debt-trap diplomacy. The disputes reflect the stark discordance between visions and practices, escalating the sustainability risks of not only the specific projects but also the broader geo-political tension and socio-economic welfare of the region.
Drawing from interdisciplinary research involving hundreds of interviews with diverse stakeholders from inside China, Hong Kong and recipient countries, this analysis finds that the inherent ambiguities in the Belt and Road scheme and a fragmentary governance have impeded the translation of a grand vision into an operationalizable program of actions. Chinese investment managers need to improve their capacity of inclusive governance to respond to the demand from recipient countries for responsible investment. As an international hub of professional services, Hong Kong has a large potential role not only in promoting international investment in BRI projects but also, critically, in enhancing the financial, social, and environmental sustainability of Chinese overseas investment.
About the speakers
Professor Linda Chelan Li is a Professor from the Department of Public and International Affairs and the Director of the Research Centre for Sustainable Hong Kong (CSHK) at City University of Hong Kong. She recently completed a multi-disciplinary and cross-border research examining the role of Hong Kong professional services in the Belt and Road Initiative. Her latest book, coedited with Phyllis Mo, Hong Kong Professional Services and the Belt-Road Initiative: Challenges for co-evolving sustainability, is to be published by Routledge Press.
Jamie Reilly (Chair) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He has been a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford. He also served as the East Asia Representative of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in China from 2001-2008. His articles have also appeared in numerous edited volumes and academic journals. He is the author of Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (Columbia, 2012) and the co-editor of Australia and China at 40 (New South, 2012). His most recent book is Orchestration: China’s Economic Statecraft across Asia and Europe (Oxford, 2021).