On Tuesday June 16th, we will organize our next monthly lecture, the third and final part of our China Series! Every month we touch upon another, often hot, topic with interesting speakers. We have been able to welcome ministers and professors, politicians and scientists and many more. These lectures are often visited by both members and non-members as they are accessible to all. However, this time it will of course be a little bit different: the lecture will take place on Zoom.

For the third part of our China Series, we are organizing a lecture around the topic of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative, also known as the New Silk Road, was announced in 2013 as the Chinese initiative to promote international cooperation. In practice, this involves building transportation and energy infrastructure throughout Eurasian land and building maritime trade routes to better connect to Africa and the Middle East to ease trade between the regions. In order to realize this, China is using massive loans, trade credits, and political power to realize these envisioned trade corridors. Because of this, opponents of the initiative are questioning China's intentions and some of them are concerned for their own position in the global trade balance. Proponents, on the other hand, argue that the newly built infrastructure and the trade and investment opportunities form a positive contribution to world trade and bring prospects for underdeveloped countries.

During this lecture, we are going to look into into the background of this initiative and what the different perspectives on this initiative are. Furthermore, we will take a look at what the consequences are for China's International Relations and if we can indeed speak of the forming of a new world order, as is often said. What are the motivations behind this initiative and what is the core purpose? Do the (developing) countries in which China is investing indeed profit and benefit from this initiative or could China be taking advantage of these countries? And what are the consequences of the BRI for the trade and relationships with other countries? These, more, and of course your own questions will be answered during the lecture.

Our speakers will each give a short lecture of 15-20 minutes. Afterwards there will be a Q&A session with the speakers, during which you can ask all your pressing questions to the experts. The speakers will be announced in the Facebook event later.

Access is of course free. The link to the lecture will be posted in the event later. We hope to see you (online) on the 16th!