Executive Director Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard presents paper at 2026 European International Studies Association Annual Meeting

In early September, Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations, presented a paper entitled “China’s Digital Silk Road in the Middle East” at the 2026 European International Studies Association Annual Meeting, which took place in Lisbon, Portugal.  This paper, co-authored with Dr. Qiu Xiaojuan, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics (China), provided background on China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) Initiative as well as hopes and fears about the DSR, discussed its progress in two Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), and evaluated its technological, economic, and domestic political effects using a variety of metrics.  Their key findings include that the DSR does not have much presence on the ground in either the Kingdom or the Emirates and that there did not seem to be any significant positive or negative externalities associated with the projects that had materialized.  Drs. Blanchard and Qiu’s paper not only enrichs our knowledge about the DSR, but provides a framework with which to analyze the DSR, which, in turn, provides a basis for assessing the merits of optimist and pessimist takes on the DSR, which are often too extreme.