'One Belt - One Road' – and the implications for China-EU relations

With Senior Policy Fellow François Godement, Director of the Asia and China Programme, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

The One Belt One Road initiative (OBOR) – the combination of a land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and a sea-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road – is a major diplomatic offensive, pushing China’s message that its new multilateral institutions and international cooperation projects make it a ‘new type of great power’, better able to understand the dynamics of a post-Western world.

In his talk, Professor Godement identifies a series of challenges for Beijing’s ambitious new Silk Roads and highlights the risk of hitting a ‘return wall’ by pouring huge investment into low-return projects in high-risk countries. He also draws attention to the potentially negative diplomatic repercussions of pushing through so transparently a Chinese project in suspicious and potentially hostile neighbours. Finally, he discusses OBOR’s implications for Europe, EU and for China-EU relations. See also ‘One Belt, One Road: China’s great leap outward’.

Short bio
François Godement is a professor of political science at Sciences Po in Paris, as well as a research associate at Asia Centre, which he founded in 2005. He is a non-resident senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., and an outside consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. More information.

Moderator: Professor, Bertel Heurlin, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen
Format: 45min presentation followed by Q&A

The seminar is open to the public.

Contact person: Martin Bech (MB@thinkchina.dk).