[WEBCAST] Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative
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China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive international infrastructure program encompassing over $1 trillion in projects spanning energy, transportation, digital networks, and trade infrastructure. Chinese leaders continually frame the BRI as “win-win” cooperation solely focused on development and connectivity, and disavow any strategic or military goals for the initiative.
However, China’s rapid military modernization, its increasingly assertive foreign policy, and its “civil-military fusion” strategy all lend credence to the concern that China’s BRI investments may not be entirely benign. Many of China’s strategically located port projects are not commercially viable and are being constructed to military standards. Numerous governments have begun to worry about ulterior motives behind BRI projects that are being developed with dual-use commercial-military capabilities and that are increasingly wired into Chinese data-collecting digital and satellite systems.
On September 9, ASPI is releasing a new report: “Weaponizing the Belt and Road Initiative” that examines key BRI projects in the Indo-Pacific. The report explores relevant Chinese doctrine, the involvement of the People’s Liberation Army with BRI, and assesses the potential military and geostrategic advantages to China from BRI ports and other projects.
Join us for a conversation with Daniel Russel, who co-authored the report, and other experts for a discussion on the strategic and military aspects of the BRI and the implications for the Indo-Pacific, the United States, and likeminded states.
SPEAKERS
Daniel Russel is Vice President for International Security and Diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service at the U.S. Department of State, he most recently served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs, where he helped formulate President Obama’s strategic rebalance to the Asia Pacific region.
Elina Noor is Director for Political-Security Affairs at the Asia Society Policy Institute and formerly Associate Professor, College of Security Studies at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. A native of Malaysia, Elina studies security developments in Southeast Asia. Her research is focused on extremism and the intersection of international security and international law with cyberspace. Previously, Elina was Director, Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia and was a member of the Brookings Institution’s Project on US Relations with the Islamic World in its formative years post-9/11.
Admiral (ret.) Scott Swift served in the U.S. Navy for more than 40 years, rising from his commission through the Aviation Reserve Officer Candidate program to become a Navy light attack and strike fighter pilot. He commanded at all levels including F/A-18 weapons school, aircraft carrier-based squadrons, Carrier Air Wing, Carrier Strike Group, the U.S. Seventh Fleet forward deployed to Japan, finally completing his uniformed career as the 35th Commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet in 2018. During his years of service, he participated in combat Operations Praying Mantis, Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, and received a master’s degree from the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. As founder of The Swift Group LLC, previous MIT Center for International Studies Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow, MIT Research Affiliate, Senior Fellow at the Center for Naval Analysis, Adjunct Professor at the Naval War College and board member of the US Naval Institute.
Susan Jakes (Moderator) is Editor of ChinaFile and Senior Fellow at Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations. From 2000-2007, she reported on China for Time magazine, first as a reporter and editor based in Hong Kong and then as the magazine’s Beijing Correspondent. Jakes was awarded the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Young Journalist of the Year Award for her coverage of Chinese youth culture. In 2003, she broke the story of the Chinese government’s cover-up of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, for which she received a Henry Luce Public Service Award. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. Jakes speaks Mandarin and holds a B.A. and M.A. from Yale in history. Her doctoral studies at Yale, which she suspended to join ChinaFile, focused on China’s environmental history and the global history of ecology.