Advertise on podcast: The Belt and Road Podcast

Keren speaks with Tayyab Safdar and Hasan H. Karrar about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a 3,000 km Chinese infrastructure network project currently under construction in Pakistan and a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative. CPEC spans energy, highways, railways, and ports, aiming to connect China's western regions to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan. For China, CPEC offers shorter routes for energy imports and trade; for Pakistan, it offers economic growth, industrialization, and greater regional connectivity.  Tayyab Safdar is the Global Security & Justice Track Director; Assistant Professor of Global Studies & Engagements, A&S at the University of Virginia. His research explores the evolving dynamics of South-South Development Cooperation, with the rise of emerging powers in the developing world like China and India. His research also looks at the implications of increasing Chinese investment in developing countries that are a part of the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), like Pakistan. Hasan H. Karrar is Associate Professor in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of. Management Sciences. He researches transnational connections and geopolitical alignments between China, Central Asia and north Pakistan, as well as development, governance and securitization on state peripheries, and in the deployment and representation of Chinese economic and strategic power. Recommendations: Hasan: Study, think about, and pay attention to what is happening in PakistanVisit Pakistan!Tayyab: Pay attention to the local context (beyond nation-state-oriented views to more community-oriented views) when thinking about big projects like CPECAlso recommends visiting Pakistan Keren: Seeing China's Belt and Road, eds. Edward Schatz, Rachel Silvey (Oxford University Press, 2024)Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Beimeng Fu and Zhaoyin Feng join the Belt and Road Podcast to talk about durian, a tropical fruit most widely known for its strong and divisive odor. It's also a fruit in very high demand in China; the country consumes 1.5 million tons of durian per year. Beimeng and Zhaoyin talk about how Chinese consumption of the fruit is driving durian plantation expansion across Southeast Asia and what that means for the region. Beimeng Fu is an independent multimedia journalist and filmmaker based in Mexico. She previously worked as senior producer of original video and documentary production at Sixth Tone. Her work has been published by The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, ABC News, South China Morning Post, among others. She co-publishes Far & Near, a visual newsletter about China from local perspectives. Zhaoyin Feng is an independent journalist and documentary producer, specializing in covering China and its place in the world. She has reported from the U.S., Europe, and Asia for a wide range of international media outlets. She previously worked as a North America correspondent and investigative documentary producer at the BBC World Service, reporting in both English and Chinese in digital, television, and audio formats. Recommendations: Beimeng: Welcome Me to the Kingdom by Mai Nardone (2023)Zhaoyin: Howtown show on Youtube from Adam Cole and Joss FongThe Present Past show on Youtube from JochemErik: Kendrick Lamar & SZA concertMinneapolis Juliet: Podcast episode on Initium where Beimeng and Zhaoyin discuss their research in Chinese (and try listening at 0.75 speed if you need to practice your Mandarin!)  Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Mingwei Huang joins Juliet, Keren, and Sisi to talk about the social and racial dimensions of China's increasing engagement with Africa, with a focus on Huang's research in Johannesburg, South Africa. The discussion is inspired by Mingwei's recent book, Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke University Press, 2024). Mingwei Huang is assistant professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of race and migration trained in American studies and gender & sexuality studies.  Recommendations: Mingwei: Made in Ethiopia film (2024)Keren: When Life Gives You Tangerines series on NetflixJuliet: Elizabeth Plantan, Wendy Leutert, Austin Strange, Pivoting to Overseas Development: International NGOs' Changing Engagement with China (2025) Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

This is Episode 1 of our sub-series "Environmental Issues along the Belt and Road" The series considers the complexities of Chinese actors' impacts on the environment, extractive activities, and role in driving sustainability solutions from the sands of the Mekong River to lithium mines in Argentina.  China produces 80% of the world's solar panels, over 60% of all wind turbines, and more electric vehicles than the US and the EU combined. In this episode, we ask how China became so dominant in clean energy technology manufacturing, how its products are exported to other countries trying to transition their energy systems, and what impacts the clean energy tech sector is having in places where manufacturing occurs.  We interview 3 experts in related topics:  Anders Hove is Senior Research Fellow at the China Energy Research Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Previously, he was Project Director for the Sino-German Energy Transition project at GIZ, and a non-resident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Anders co-hosts the Environment China podcast. Related reading here, here and here.  Dr. Cecilia Springer is a Principal at Global Efficiency Intelligence and Co-director of the Industrial Electrification Center. She has over 10 years of experience conducting technical research on energy policy and industrial decarbonization, with a regional focus on U.S., China, and Southeast Asia. She is a non-resident at the Global China Initiative (formerly the assistant director) at the BU Global Development Policy Center where she led the Energy and Climate research group and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Related reading here, here and here.  Dr. Nikita Sud is Professor of the Politics of Development at the University of Oxford and Governing Body Fellow of Wolfson College. She is author of the books "Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and The State: A Biography of Gujarat" and "The Making of Land and the Making of India." Her work explores the transition to renewable energy, and the institutional, political and financial mechanisms that underlie this in regions that are geostrategically crucial, while being environmentally highly vulnerable. We discuss her research on Rempang Eco City, a planned Chinese investment of Solar PV manufacturing in Indonesia.  Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Justin Haruyama joins Juliet, Erik, and Sisi (welcome to our new team member/producer!) to talk about China-Zambia relations, from the history of Chinese aid in Zambia to the complex people-to-people relations that characterize this bilateral relationship. Justin Haruyama is an instructor of anthropology at The University of British Columbia whose research explores diverse forms of relationality enabled by Chinese-African encounters, ranging from intimacy and fellowship, to exclusion and xenophobia, to mutual dependence and obligation. He is currently working on a book entitled Mining for Coal and Souls: Modes of Relationality in Emerging Chinese-Zambian Worlds that examines the controversial presence of Chinese migrants and investors in Zambia today.  Articles: Justin Haruyama, "'South-South' Capitalist Extractive Patriarchy" in Transforming Anthropology (2025)Justin Haruyama, "Jehovah's Witnesses Are Learning Chinese to Evangelize in Zambia" in Anthropology News (2025)Justin Haruyama, "Shortcut English: Pidgin Language, Racialization, and Symbolic Economies at a Chinese-Operated Mine in Zambia" in African Studies Review (2023) Recommendations: Justin: Sapiens Podcast (Justin's episode comes out in May!)Mingwei Huang, Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke University Press, 2024)Di Wu, Affective Ecounters: Everyday Life among Chinese Migrants in Zambia (Routledge, 2021)Erik: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)I'm Still Here (2024)Sisi: Jemima Pierce, The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race (University of Chicago Press, 2013)Juliet: Get on BlueSky!Northwestern University's 2023 commencement speech by Illinois governor JB PritzkerThanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Muyang Chen joins Erik and Keren to talk all things Chinese development finance, including her recent book, The Latecomer's Rise: Policy Banks and the Globalization of China's Development Finance (2024). Muyang Chen is an Assistant Professor of International Development at Peking University's School of International Studies. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of development, political economy, and international relations. She has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University, a visiting scholar at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and a pre-doctoral fellow at the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University. Recommendations: Muyang: "Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective" by Alexander Gerschenkron (1962)Keren: "雍正王朝 The Era of Emperor Yongzheng" (drama series, can watch on YouTube) Erik: Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023) Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Enze Han joins Juliet and Keren to discuss all things China in Southeast Asia, from migration to tourism to pig butchering scams, and much more. Enze Han is Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include the international relations of East Asia, China's relations with Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian politics, and ethnic politics in China. Professor Han received a Ph.D in Political Science from the George Washington University. He is the author of The Ripple Effect: China's Complex Presence in Southeast Asia (2024). Recommendations: Enze: Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley (2024) Keren:  米拉蒂 (Milati) by Yan Geling (2023). Juliet: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences. The Economist (2023).Ezra Klein: The Deep Conflict Between Our Work and Parenting IdealsYou're Wrong About: The Tradwife RisesThanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Jess DiCarlo joins Juliet and Keren for a dynamic discussion about China's identity as an infrastructural state, the myth of the debt trap narrative, cycling as method (and Jess's experience biking along the China-Laos train route), the impact of the BRI in Laos, and much more.   Dr. Jess DiCarlo is an assistant professor in Geography, Environment, and Asian Studies at the University of Utah. She has been a Wilson China Fellow, a Public Intellectual Program Fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and the Chevalier Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Transportation and Development in China at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Colorado Boulder and a masters in development studies from the University of California Berkeley. Her research focuses on China, its borderlands, infrastructure, issues at the environment-society nexus, and China's global integration. DiCarlo is on the editorial board of The People’s Map of Global China (the launch of which we covered on this show) and its related Global China Pulse journal, and the co-founder of the Second Cold War Observatory and co-host of its podcast, The Roundtable podcast. Recommendations: Jess: Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China by Jesse Rodenbiker  Juliet: The Three Body Problem series on Netflix, adapted from the trilogy by Cixin Liu Keren: Peter Hessler's writings, specifically River Town, Oracle Bones, Country DrivingThanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Tabitha Grace Mallory and Andrew Chubb visit the Belt and Road Podcast to chat about China's ocean economy, maritime activities, and the role of concepts like ocean consciousness.  Dr. Tabitha Grace Mallory is CEO of the consulting firm China Ocean Institute, and an affiliate faculty member of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Tabitha specializes in Chinese foreign and environmental policy and researches China and global ocean governance. She has consulted for the UN, WWF, the World Bank, and the OECD, she serves on the board of directors of the China Club of Seattle, and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the Washington State China Relations Council. Andrew is a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. His work examines the linkages between Chinese domestic politics and international relations, and more broadly he looks at maritime and territorial disputes, strategic communication, political propaganda, and Chinese Communist Party history. Andrew is the author of Chinese Nationalism and the Gray Zone: Case Analyses of Public Opinion and PRC Foreign Policy and the PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia. Recommendations: Andrew: Haver, Zoe; China Maritime Report No. 12: Sansha City in China's South China Sea Strategy: Building a System of Administrative Control (2021) Tabitha: The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch (2021)The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development by Shiping Tang (2022) Erik: Japan; specifically, record shopping in JapanBM-01 record Juliet: Rodenbiker, Jesse; Global China in the American heartland: Chinese investment, populist coalitions, and the new red scare (2024) Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Leland Lazarus joins Juliet to talk about Chinese and Taiwanese engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean, from official diplomatic activities to BRI projects to transnational organized crime.  Leland Lazarus is the Associate Director of National Security at Florida International University’s Jack D. Gordon Institute of Public Policy. He is an expert on China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, and manages a team of researchers and interns that collect data and analysis on U.S. national security and governance in the region. Fluent in both Mandarin and Spanish, he holds an M.A. in U.S.-China Foreign Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a B.A. in International Relations at Brown University. His past experience includes work in the U.S. Embassy for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, the U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang, China, and former work as an Associate Producer at China Central Television and as a Fulbright Scholar in Panama.  Recommendations: Leland: Earth League International's work, particularly that of Andrea Crosta, founder, executive director, and board memberChinese Activities in LAC Dashboard (soon to release 2.0)FIU flagship conference: Hemispheric Security Conference on May 9 and 10Juliet: China in Global Capitalism: Building International Solidarity Against Imperial Rivalry by Eli Friedman, Kevin Lin, Rosa Liu, Ashley Smith (coming June 2024)Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Bowen Gu joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about environmental justice and China's coal investments in Indonesia, with a focus on Gu's recent paper: Black gold and green BRI: A grounded analysis of Chinese investment in coal-fired power plants in Indonesia (2024). Bowen Gu is a PhD student at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). Her research looks into coal-related environmental justice movements in China and broader regions under the Belt and Road Initiative.  Recommendations:   Erik: Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City by Darren Byler (2022)The symphonies of Glenn Branca (especially no.10) Bowen: Land, Water, Air, and Freedom: The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice by Joan Martínez-Alier (2023)Album of Indonesian music (name tk) Juliet: The Railpolitik: Leadership and Agency in Sino-African Infrastructure Development by Yuan Wang (2023)Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Professor Omolade Adunbi joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about China's free trade zones in Nigeria. Adunbi is the Director of the African Studies Center, Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies, Professor of Law, and Faculty Associate in the Program in the Environment at the University of Michigan. His research explores issues related to governance, infrastructures of extraction, environmental politics and rights, power, violence, culture, transnational institutions, multinational corporations, and the postcolonial state. Recommendations: Omolade: Music of Fela KutiPower, Knowledge, Land: Contested Ontologies of Land and its Governance in Africa by Laura German (2022) Erik: Episode of the Sinica Podcast: Robert Daly of the Kissinger Institute on the morality of U.S. China policyLaufey's music, specifically her new album Bewitched Juliet: Cooperating for the Climate: Learning from International Partnerships in China's Clean Energy Sector by Joanna Lewis (2023) Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Juliet, Erik, and guest Tim Ruhlig discuss technical standards, China’s growth in technical industries and its increasing influence in leading and setting standards, and the new geopolitics of technical standardization and interdependence. Tim Ruhlig is a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, where he researches Europe-China relations, German-China relations, Hong Kong politics, and Chinese foreign industrial policy, He is the founder of the Digital Power China (DPC) Research Consortium, which brings together European engineers and Chinese scholars to carry out policy-relevant research on the PRC’s growing digital technology footprint and its implications for Europe. Recommendations: Tim:  The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, Jonathan Hillman (2020)U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis? Bonnie Glaser, Ryan Hass, Richard Bush (2023)Film: “To Life” Zhang Yi Mou (1994)Wildland: The Making of America's Fury, Evan Osnos (2021)Erik:  "Barbie Heimer"—Barbie (2023) and Oppenheimer (2023) movies on the same day (recommendation is Barbie is the better movie)Juliet: “Even China Isn’t Convinced It Can Replace the U.S.” Jessia Chen Weiss (2023)Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Before the shovels hit the dirt, before a developer gets construction permits, before an MOU is signed, there exists a huge process of project feasibility, planning, and pre-approval. That process is incredibly complex and costly, but a new Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) has been established to help. Shuang Liu joins Juliet and Erik on this episode to discuss how this might help kick start and expand the pipeline of more sustainable projects, and her broader goals in working at the World Resources Institute. Shuang Liu is the China Finance Director and Acting Director at the Sustainable Finance Center at the World Resources Institute. She leads the Center's work on China finance and the Belt and Road Initiative, and works with governments, private financial institutions, NGOs, and other partners to enhance the regulatory framework and provide enabling conditions to shift China's investment to sustainable finance. She holds a master's degree in environmental and resource economics from University College London and a bachelor's in economics from Peking University. Her article on the Panda Paw Dragon Claw blog is entitled, "Can a Chinese-led multilateral initiative help unlock more sustainable infrastructure in the Global South?" Recommendations: Shuang: An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn (2018) Juliet: Try to bike more in the summer, or pick up any activity that is good for both yourself and the planet! Erik: Outsourcing Repression episode of the Pekingology podcast with Lynette H. Ong and host Jude Blanchette Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China by Lynette H. Ong (2022)Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social

Juliet chats with Laetitia Tran Ngoc about the state of China-Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) relations, the way people in the DRC view China and the U.S., outside interest in critical minerals mining in the DRC, and the domestic situation of the DRC that acts as a destabilizing factor to it all.  Her article in South China Morning Post is here: "Mineral-rich central Africa become focal point in US-China tug of war" Laetitia Tran Ngoc is a freelance journalist and consultant specializing in government communications, with extensive experience in advising diplomatic institutions in their strategic relationship with the European Union.  Her writing focuses on central and east Africa and China-Africa relations. She previously worked as a research officer at the Embassy of Ethiopia in Brussels and at the Taipei Representative Office to the EU and Belgium. She has master’s degrees in International Relations and Chinese Language and Culture from the Free University of Brussels.  Recommendations: Laetitia: Sur les ailes du dragon: Voyages entre l'Afrique et la Chine (On the Wings of the Dragon) by Lieve Joris (2014)Juliet: The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene by Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher (2020)Fighting Fire and Fascism in the American West in Dissent Magazine, by Patrick Bigger and Sara Nelson (2023)Thanks as always for excellent editing by Taili Ni! Thanks for listening! Follow us on BlueSky @beltandroadpod.blsk.social