Southeast Asia is home to many of China’s most high-profile Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, including Kyakpyu port in Myanmar, a high-speed railway in northern Laos, and now-stalled rail and pipeline projects in Malaysia. While these physical infrastructure projects have attracted widespread attention, China’s involvement in the region’s digital infrastructure has been far less examined despite holding the potential to have even greater strategic importance in the coming years.
Feb 19, 2019
The world requires an interconnection agenda that focuses on multilateral institution-building and frames power trade as a tool for states to shore up grid systems in the renewables age.
Feb 13, 2019
It is clear that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) carries important implications not only for the world’s water resources, but also for politics in BRI countries. One of the worst outcomes would be for it to exacerbate the growing number of local conflicts over shared, and often shrinking, water resources.
Feb 6, 2019
Launched in 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) strives to improve infrastructure, trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds across more than 80 countries. Its digital dimensions are far-reaching, including fiber optic cables, 5G networks, satellites, and devices that connect to these systems. On February 5th, the CSIS Reconnecting Asia Project hosted a discussion about these developments and their implications for U.S. economic and strategic interests.
Feb 5, 2019
With an eye toward illuminating current issues, this report draws from examples throughout history of how states use foreign infrastructure to advance strategic objectives. It shows how China is updating and exercising tactics used by Western powers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how these issues, and the strategic implications they carry, are likely to intensify in the coming years.
Jan 22, 2019