The Belt and Road Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

This is Episode 2 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, & role in driving sustainability solutions from the sands of the Mekong River to lithium mines in Argentina. 

Since 2012, China has invested roughly US$4 billion in 12 nickel projects across Southeast Asia, with a major focus on Indonesia, which supplies 16% of global nickel production. In South America, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina— known as the Lithium Triangle—together hold over 54% of the world’s lithium reserves beneath their salt flats as of 2024, and China is the only country to have signed agreements with all three. In this episode, we explore what makes minerals “critical” to the energy transition, how China’s long-term industrial strategy and geopolitical struggles have (re)shaped global critical mineral supply chains, & how stakeholders in producer countries navigate trade-offs between economic development, sovereignty, & environmental and social impacts.

Guests: 

Dr. Jing Li is a professor at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business and holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Investment Strategy. She also serves as the Co-Director of the Jack Austin Center for Asia Pacific Business Studies. Related reading here, here & here.

Dr. Anastasia Ufimtseva is the Senior Program Manager for International Trade and Investment at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Her research explores global energy governance, trade & investment, the political economy of natural resources, & international development, with a focus on Asia. Related reading here & here. 

Muhammad Habib Abiyan Dzakwan (Zahwan) is a researcher at the Department of International Relations, CSIS Indonesia. His research areas cover sustainable development, critical minerals, & emerging technologies. Related reading here, here & here.

Dr. Stella Juste is a researcher at CONICET (Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council). In a recent study, she applies dependency theory to identify a “double periphery” pattern in Argentina–China relations, particularly through lithium extraction & renewable energy projects. Related reading here.

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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 Pakistan
• Visit Pakistan!

Tayyab:

• Pay attention to the local context (beyond nation-state-oriented views to more community-oriented views) when thinking about big projects like CPEC
• Also recommends visiting Pakistan 

Keren:

• Seeing China's Belt and Road, eds. Edward Schatz, Rachel Silvey (Oxford University Press, 2024)

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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 member
• Chinese Activities in LAC Dashboard (soon to release 2.0)
• FIU flagship conference: Hemispheric Security Conference on May 9 and 10

Juliet:

• China in Global Capitalism: Building International Solidarity Against Imperial Rivalry by Eli Friedman, Kevin Lin, Rosa Liu, Ashley Smith (coming June 2024)

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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)

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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 Kuti
• Power, 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 policy
• Laufey'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)

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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)

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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)

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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!

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Alessandro (Ale) Rippa joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about how he uses China's borderlands as a starting point to understand the Chinese state, global engagements like the Belt and Road Initiative, and Chinese development. They discuss Ale's experiences working in China's border regions in Xinjiang and Yunnan, how borders are zones of connection and disconnection, China's historical support for the Communist Party of Burma, and much more.

Alessandro Rippa is associate professor at the University of Oslo's Department of Social Anthropology. His research centers on China's borderlands as lenses for studying infrastructure, global circulations, and the environment. He is PI of a new ERC Starting Grant project entitled, "Amber Worlds: A Geological Anthropology for the Anthropocene". 

Featured work: 

• "Imagined borderlands: Terrain, technology and trade in the making and managing of the China-Myanmar border." 2022. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography .
• "Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China." 

Recommendations:

Ale:

• Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia edited by Max Hirsh and Till Mostowlansky (2023)
• Keep an eye out for the upcoming special issue of The China Quarterly on Chinese infrastructure

Erik:

• Scribd.com for eBooks and audiobooks
• Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell (2020)
• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (2021)

Juliet:

• Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China's Rise by Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri (2021)
• Sinica Podcast: Sinica at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, Boston 2023: Capsule interviews

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May Farid and Hui Li drop by the podcast to talk about INGOs, or international non-governmental organizations, and specifically how their relationship with China is shifting as China goes global.  The conversation focuses on their article "International NGOs as intermediaries in China's 'going out' strategy."  

May Farid is a political scientist studying civil society, policy and development in contemporary China and beyond. She is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center on China's Economy and Institutions and a Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and has worked extensively in the NGO sector in China, as well as a researcher with China's leading policy think tank.

Hui Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on public and nonprofit management, organization theory, and civic engagement. In collaboration with a team of researchers, she studies NGOs and environmental governance in authoritarian China. In addition, she works closely with colleagues from the Civic Engagement Initiative at USC and studies neighborhood councils and civic engagement in Los Angeles.

Recommendations:

Hui: 

• Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics by Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink 

May:

• Principled instrumentalism: a theory of transnational NGO behaviour by George E. Mitchell and Hans Peter Schmitz
• Beyond the Boomerang: From Transnational Advocacy Networks to Transcalar Advocacy in International Politics edited by Christopher L. Pallas and Elizabeth A. Bloodgood 
• Leutert, Wendy, Elizabeth Plantan and Austin Strange. "Puzzling Partnerships: Overseas Infrastructure Development by Chinese State-Owned Enterprises and Humanitarian Organizations". 2022.

Erik:

• Two albums by Lingua Ignota
  • Sinner Get Ready 
  • Caligula
• RRR film 

Juliet:

• Follow Yige Dong, assistant professor of global gender and sexuality studies at the University at Buffalo
• Dong, Yige. The Dilemma of Foxconn Moms: Social Reproduction and the Rise of 'Gig Manufacturing' in China. 2022.

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