The Political-Economy of China's Maritime Silk Road Initiative & South Asia

China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) aims to interconnect vast swaths of East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and is one of China’s top policy priorities. It has captured extensive attention from Chinese ministries, subnational governments, state-owned enterprises, think tanks, and universities. Analysts, businesspeople, and policymakers are struggling to understand the political and economic implications of MSRI for regional integration schemes, bilateral relationships, infrastructure, Chinese outward investment and lending, and host countries domestic politics. Unfortunately, many investigations, whether reports or conferences, have probed the subject in an overly general way such as focusing on the entire One Belt, One Road (OBOR) scheme of which the MSRI is a central part. On top of this, many assessments are too wide ranging in their fields of coverage. This makes it very difficult to obtain the kind of detailed information needed to make business and policy decisions. To advance our understanding of the MSRI, the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations (“Wong MNC Center”), a think tank, has organized a 1-1/2 day international conference with presentations by leading analysts from Australia, India, China, and the US that will focus on the politico-economic dimensions of the MSRI and South Asia. The conference, co-sponsored by and hosted by the School of Advanced International and Area Studies at East China Normal University (ECNU), will take place on Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22 at the ECNU campus at Zhongshan Bei Lu, Shanghai, China. It will help attendees better understand the features of the MSRI, the characteristics of those countries like India and Sri Lanka that will play an important role in the development of the MSRI in South Asia, and the factors that will shape the MSRI’s future course and success. Registration is required.