As China’s engagement with African countries has grown over the past several years, Beijing is increasingly turning to security contractors to protect its Belt and Road Initiative projects, citizens, and diplomats.
The success of China’s regional outreach in Latin America will depend, as it has for a number of years, on Beijing’s relative influence in regional institutions and on the capacity and effectiveness of the institutions themselves.
The Trump administration holds a decidedly critical view of China’s infrastructure initiatives in Pakistan. Although there is much to criticize in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the administration’s fixation on commercial and economic issues threatens to distract U.S. policymakers from deeper concerns.
The far-reaching political and economic impacts of pandemics warrant security coordination on par with that of military threats.
How has Beijing’s approach to multilateral institutions evolved in the seventy years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China?
Historically, China has forged its own distinctive foreign aid practices. In March 2018, Beijing established the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) to integrate and streamline its development aid programs.
The CIDCA’s highly ambitious agenda is a clear sign that, after years of considerable growth in China’s development finance, the underlying bureaucratic system is now beginning to mature. Yet key questions remain unanswered.
The narrative that China is engaging in problematic debt trap diplomacy has taken off. But for Sri Lanka and most of China’s other Belt and Road Initiative partners, it is important to understand the history and politics of their relations with Beijing and project selection.
Beijing and New Delhi’s simultaneous rise has led both countries to take a more assertive approach to issues such as border disputes, resulting in the Doklam crisis. There are, however, opportunities for practical cooperation between China and India.
The China International Development Cooperation Agency has been tasked with lofty goals, but near-term expectations must be tempered by lingering questions about how it fits into the country’s existing foreign aid bureaucracy.
As China’s demand for resources and investment opportunities grows, so too do its relations with the developing world. Through collaborative exchange with leading Chinese and international experts, this program analyzes and informs the global debate on China’s relations with Latin America and the African Continent.
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