The United States and its allies are working to expand the availability of high-quality infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
On September 29, CSIS hosted an online discussion of Jonathan Hillman’s new book on China’s Belt and Road Initiative, The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, moderated by Axios China reporter Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian. Hillman recounts his journey to China’s projects in Asia, Europe, and Africa to reveal the global risks lurking within Beijing’s project of the century.
Serbia is a hub for a wide range of Chinese economic activity in the Western Balkans, as previous CSIS research has indicated. This report, the second in a series, examines Serbia in greater detail to shed more light on China’s political and economic objectives, its mechanisms for influence, and the implications of its activities, including a second wave of digital infrastructure projects.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping surprised the world in late September by announcing that China would become carbon neutral by 2060. But this promise will amount to little if Xi’s signature foreign policy vision, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), continues exporting China’s environmental challenges globally. China’s poor environmental record abroad presents a strategic opportunity for the United States, if only Washington would seize it.
Overcoming the barriers to a free trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies, could balance China’s rise and infuse the digital future with democratic standards.
In competing with China, the United States and its democratic allies should place the free flow of data and an open global digital economy at the heart of their strategy.