Japan’s Belt and Road balancing act

There is an old saying: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Japan seems to be well aware of this adage, because it is oscillating between fellow democracies and China in order to strengthen its position in the race for influence in Asia. Japan used to be one of the most vehement critics of [...]

By | 9 November 2018|Categories: Articles|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

All roads lead to Beijing

All European roads no longer lead to Rome, but Beijing, with Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Mark Rutte and Angela Merkel travelling to the capital of the European Union’s largest trade partner. But the European leaders didn’t go to China just to make a new friend; Europe has a few grievances for Beijing to address. [...]

Redefining the Belt and Road Initiative

The narrative of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as spanning over 65 countries and gathering 62 percent of the world population, 31 percent of its GDP, and 40 percent of global land area should once and for all disappear now that China has announced the extension of the BRI to Latin America. Ever [...]

Macron and May: A tale of 2 China visits

Following the visit of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the beginning of January, Chinese leaders welcomed another major state visit from a European official: the British prime minister, Theresa May. While Macron is seeking to strengthen his position as a leader of the European Union and the voice of Europe, May is more [...]

The Iron Silk Road Bubble

If one image has come to define the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s ambitious, amorphous project of overseas investment, it’s the railway. Every few months or so, the media praises a new line that will supposedly connect a Chinese city with a European capital. Today it’s Budapest. Yesterday it was London. They are the [...]

Is China’s Belt and Road ready to be the new face of globalisation?

If Thomas Friedman wrote his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree today, maybe the Lexus would be replaced with a Chinese vehicle, like a Geely, for example, because globalisation has a new pole: China. In the past, the US led the wave of globalisation through its economic might, soft power and hyper-connectivity. But [...]

By | 16 May 2017|Categories: Articles|Tags: , , |0 Comments

China: from panda diplomacy to New Silk Road smart power

“We have kung fu and we have pandas, but we could not make a film like Kung Fu Panda!” This is what a Chinese professor confessed some years ago to David Shambaugh, a professor at George Washington University. Although China lacked the creativity to produce a soft power hit like the popular Disney movie, [...]

By | 30 September 2016|Categories: Articles|Tags: , |0 Comments

How a Greek Port Became a Chinese ‘Dragon Head’

During the Ming dynasty, a single man defined China’s maritime strategy. His name was Zheng He and his travels along the coast of the Indian Ocean are often compared with those undertaken by Christopher Columbus, with the biggest difference between them being that Zheng’s maritime campaigns were based on a soft power strategy and weren’t [...]

By | 26 April 2016|Categories: Articles|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments