ETH Evening Talk: "The New Silk Road: Chinese Visions and European Reactions"

During an Evening Talk on 22 October 2019, external pageDr. Thomas Edercall_made, Research Associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, and Linda Maduz, Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies, discussed “The New Silk Road: Chinese Visions and European Reactions”.

The starting point of the discussion was the difficulties involved in grasping the large-scale project, launched six years ago under China’s President Xi Jinping. Beijing's gigantic infrastructure and investment project promises participating states in Europe and other regions of the world new opportunities for development and networking. The speakers also talked about the goals that the Chinese government is pursuing with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the project’s design as well as the different reactions that the large-scale development strategy is provoking in Europe. European countries and actors are responding to the BRI in different ways. While criticism of Chinese foreign and economic policy has recently increased in Brussels, Berlin and Paris, political decision-makers in smaller, financially weak European countries continue to rely on Chinese investment and money.