On May 29, Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations gave a speech entitled “Belt and Road, Neither Boom nor Bust: The Continuing Relevance of Politics and Economics” for the popular “China Crossroads” Talk Series. Dr. Blanchard addressed the heated debate about if China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is booming, on the road to stagnation, or, worse, failure and sought avoid the problem of overly broad BRI treatments by concentrating on China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). Dr.