Serbia

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's picture

The BRI is Dead? Long Live the BRI? Part I: Present at the Creation

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard
Posted: Mar 29, 2023

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which consists of two main components, the sea-focused Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) and the land-focused Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), came into being in 2013.[1] Since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the MSRI and the SREB, there has been considerable positive and negative froth about the BRI. Enthusiasts have lauded the BRI as a foundation for building a community of common interests, solving infrastructure gaps in the developing world, helping countries industrialize, expanding people-to-people exchanges, and pluralizing international relations.

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's picture

The Digital Silk Road, part II-Dialing Down the Hyperbole

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard
Posted: May 09, 2021

My last blog supplied a basic overview of China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) initiative, part of its larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This blog represents a first cut at detailing the DSR. Unfortunately, as with the BRI, it is quite challenging to do so well. Reasons include the non-existence of a public, official list of DSR projects, the misclassification of technology-related foreign direct investment (FDI) in areas such as smartphone manufacturing and semiconductor packing and testing operations as DSR-space FDI even though they have nothing to do with connectivity, and the unwillingness of participant countries to disclose the terms of their contracting deals with China.