The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) turns ten years old in 2023. China’s flagship global infrastructure connectivity and development finance initiative has resulted in over three thousand development projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars. However, critics point out recipient countries’ rising debt to China and important questions about the environmental safety of some BRI projects. Looking ahead to the next decade of the BRI, can China keep up the project’s momentum? How will the BRI’s weaknesses and successes shape the next ten years?
In an interview recorded on September 26, 2023, Ammar A. Malik, senior research scientist at AidData, joins the National Committee to review the state of the Belt and Road Initiative after its first ten years, and discuss the domestic and international forces that will shape the next.
Speaker
Ammar A. Malik
Dr. Ammar A. Malik is Senior Research Scientist at AidData, where he leads the Chinese Development Finance Program. His team develops pioneering methods, such as the Tracking Underreported Financial Flows (TUFF) methodology, to track and analyze underreported financial flows from non-traditional donors to developing countries.
