.png)
Theme: 2. From Oceanic Crossroads: Empires, Networks and Histories
Jeong Kyung Seo
Seoul National University Asia Center, Republic of Korea
Suk-ki Kong
Seoul National University Asia Center, Republic of Korea
Jeong Kyung Seo
Seoul National University Asia Center, Republic of Korea
Jongseok Yoon
University of Seoul, Republic of Korea
Evi Fitriani
Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia
Umesh Moramudali
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Ten years after the start of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), there is still a great deal of controversy surrounding the assessment of its achievements. China has emphasized its contribution to the common prosperity of the international community and the new opportunities for Asian countries to enjoy the fruits of the BRI together. On the other hand, the United States emphasizes that China utilizes it to increase its political and economic influence, and criticizes it for exacerbating global risks by pushing many developing countries into debt traps. However, the voices and perspectives of Asian countries have been largely ignored and perceived as passive objects.
This panel will examine the multifaceted impacts of China's BRI on Asian countries by an interactive process through the eyes of Asia. In the context of increasing interaction and connectivity in the region, China's BRI presents a variety of risks and opportunities at both the individual and regional levels. This panel will examine the multifaceted impacts of the BRI on Asia from the perspectives of Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest Asia, and draw out the positive and negative implications and future prospects of China's BRI at the regional level.
To better understand the BRI's impact on Asia, our panel's explorations are conducted from multidisciplinary approaches including diplomacy, political economy, geopolitics/geography, and socio-cultural dimensions. One speaker traced the historical origins of the BRI to China's Third World policy during the Cold War and its implications for today's U.S.-China strategic competition. Another speaker examines the intricate relationship between China's foreign financing and Sri Lanka's domestic politics over time from a political economy perspective. Another speaker investigates the intricate implications of China's high-speed railway projects within ASEAN countries from a geopolitical/geoeconomic perspective. The last presentation, from a sociocultural perspective, analyzes the reasons why China's appeal has not been fully realized in the decade of the BRI as an odd combination of insufficient globalization and increasing nationalism/patriotism in both China and other Asian countries.
In doing so, this panel seeks to avoid a binary understanding of China's BRI that reduces it to a perspective of U.S. and Chinese interests, and (re)situates it in the context of each Asian country and the Asian region. In particular, it seeks to problematize the relationship between Asia and China from an Asian perspective and open up the possibility of more open-ended conclusions to explore shared prosperity and future visions for Asia.
Institutional panel by: SNUAC Northeast Asia Center and UOS Center for China Studies, University of Seoul
Presenter: Jeong Kyung Seo – Seoul National University Asia Center
Presenter: Jongseok Yoon – University of Seoul
Presenter: Evi Fitriani – Universitas Indonesia
Presenter: Umesh Moramudali – University of Colombo