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, industrializ...
Aug 11, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 77
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 Mexic...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 76
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...
Apr 22, 2025•48 min•Ep. 75
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 cle...
Apr 04, 2025•58 min•Season 2Ep. 1
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 xenopho...
Mar 16, 2025•52 min•Ep. 74
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 ...
Oct 22, 2024•42 min•Ep. 73
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 ...
Sep 19, 2024•53 min•Ep. 72
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....
Jul 23, 2024•49 min•Ep. 71
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, th...
May 30, 2024•58 min•Ep. 70
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. ...
Apr 22, 2024•46 min•Ep. 69
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 reg...
Mar 08, 2024•41 min•Ep. 68
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 instit...
Nov 09, 2023•45 min•Ep. 67
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...
Sep 27, 2023•46 min•Ep. 66
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...
Aug 21, 2023•30 min•Ep. 65
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...
Jul 13, 2023•38 min•Ep. 64
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...
Apr 28, 2023•41 min•Ep. 63
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 Eco...
Mar 24, 2023•47 min•Ep. 62
Juliet is joined by friends and fellow researchers Jesse Rodenbiker and Tyler Harlan to discuss their recent experiences at the COP15 of the Conference on Biological Diversity, China's growing environmental leadership, and China's domestic environmental policies and their impact on BRI initiatives and overseas engagements. Jesse starts off the conversation with some background on China's approach to environmental governance - based on his articles " Making Ecology Developmental : China's Environ...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 61
Kyle Chan visits the Belt and Road Podcast to talk about state capacity in railway bureaucracies in China and India, his research collected while riding trains through the two countries, the incredibly mundane naming of Chinese companies, and much more. This episode discusses Kyle's research published in two articles: Inside China's state-owned enterprises: Managed competition through a multi-level structure (2022) and The organizational roots of state capacity: Comparing railway bureaucracies i...
Dec 12, 2022•43 min•Ep. 60
Juliet and Erik are joined by Maria Repnikova to talk about her book, " Chinese soft power ," Confucius Institutes, China's love for spectacle, and of course, how all this and more applies to the Belt and Road. What is soft power? How is China doing when it comes to soft power projection around the world? Listen to find out! Maria Repnikova is the Director of the Center for Global Information Studies and an Assistant Professor in Global Communication at Georgia State University. She is a scholar...
Oct 24, 2022•49 min•Ep. 59
Keren Zhu talked with us about her research on the socioeconomic impacts of the Belt and Road, specifically with regard to Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). She provides background and analysis on the SGR, she and Eric discuss their personal experiences riding the railway, and more! Much of the conversation centers around Keren's recent work with co-authors Ben Mwangi and Lynn Hu, published in the article Socioeconomic impact of China's infrastructure-led growth model in Africa: A case study...
Sep 16, 2022•39 min•Ep. 58
Jeffrey Qi discusses China's growing role in high-level, high-stakes global climate governance. We discuss research Jeffrey conducted as a master's student in political science at the University of British Columbia and the resulting article he wrote with his advisor Peter Dauvergne, China's rising influence on climate governance: Forging a path for the global South (2021), which can be found here . Jeffrey Qi is a policy analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development's Resili...
Aug 09, 2022•44 min•Ep. 57
Erik is joined by Winslow Robertson and Owakhela Kankhwende to discuss their chapter of the book From Trump to Biden and Beyond: Reimagining U.S.-China Relations, entitled "U.S. Strategy Vis-À-Vis China's Presence in the African Continent: Description and Prescription". Winslow Robertson is a PhD student at IESE Business School at the University of Navarra, where he focuses on Chinese provincial SOEs and the Belt and Road. He is also the founder of Cowries and Rice , a Sino-Africa management con...
Jun 23, 2022•50 min•Ep. 56
Juliet and Erik are joined by Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi and Zarina Urmanbetova of Roadwork Asia to discuss China's road infrastructure projects in Central Asia and their research at Roadwork Asia, including their article on infrastructural connections across the Toghuz-Toro district of central Kyrgystan Welcome and Unwelcome Connections: Travelling Post-Soviet Roads in Kyrgyzstan . Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Fribourg and head of the ROADWORK pr...
Jun 10, 2022•50 min•Ep. 55
Margaret Myers returns to The Belt and Road Podcast to speak with Erik about the role and development of China's international insurance sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. The conversation is based on her January 2022 report from The Dialogue entitled Going Out, Guaranteed: Chinese Insurers in Latin America. Margaret Myers is the director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. She created the Dialogue's China and Latin America Working Group in 2011, as we...
May 10, 2022•32 min•Ep. 54
On this episode, Juliet and Erik speak to Dr. Ammar Malik about AidData’s Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0 . This dataset provides the most comprehensive data on China’s overseas development finance activities, covering projects over 18 commitment years (2000-2017). They discuss the trends and findings from the dataset, break down China’s overseas loans and the concept of ‘hidden debt’, explore potential future applications of the data, and more. Dr. Ammar Malik is a senio...
Apr 08, 2022•49 min•Ep. 53
Just across the Xinjiang border, China is investing in a range of sectors. Infrastructure and road construction are booming as in many other places, but cotton investments dominate and are seen as a distinct type. Cotton is considered a strategic crop both to China and Tajikistan and is embedded in a range of elite networks and state power. Cotton Diplomacy is one of many things we cover in this episode, listen in! Read more of Dr. Hofman's work: Chinese Cotton Diplomacy in Tajikistan : Greasing...
Mar 10, 2022•49 min•Ep. 52
On episode 51, Juliet and Erik welcome back Dr. Hong Zhang to discuss the history, interests, corporate structures and agency of International Chinese infrastructure contractors. Discussion is based on Hong Zhang's May 2021 working paper for SAIS-China Africa Research Initiative entitled: Chinese International Contractors in Africa: Structure and Agency. Hong Zhang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University's SIAS-CARI and a 2021-22 China and the World Program Fellow at Columbia Univer...
Feb 03, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 51
Juliet and Erik celebrate their 50th episode by discussing their first co-authored article " Beyond Competition: Why the BRI and the B3W Can’t and Shouldn’t Be Considered Rivals " (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung) On June 12, 2021, US President Biden along with the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) launched their own “ positive alternative ” to the BRI - the Build Back Better for the World (B3W) multilateral infrastructure investment initiative. Juliet and Erik make the case that framing the two initia...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 3 min
On this episode Erik speaks with returning guest Dr. Alvin Camba about his latest research paper "How Chinese firms approach investment risk: strong leaders, cancellation, and pushback" (link to paper) This groundbreaking research uses hundreds of in-depth interviews with top officials from China, Chinese SOEs, state-owned banks as well as Philippine and Indonesian political and economic elite to get a glimpse at how Chinese firms view the strength of a foreign leader, how that affects their inv...
Sep 28, 2021•52 min•Ep. 49
