Workshop

China`s New Silkroads:

Exploring the Emerging Worlds of Chinese Globalization

What is the shape of China Global? How do Chinese transnational investments in infrastructures and production facilities effect lives worldwide? Can we speak of a Chinese-type globalization?

In this interdisciplinary workshop, we will discuss first insights from the field of Chinese globalization initiatives. China’s Belt-Road-Initiative, also known as “One-Road One-Belt” (OBOR), inaugurated by Xi Jinping in 2014, represents an encompassing strategy of turning China into a global center by linking up transregional infrastructure projects within the transport, energy and telecommunication sector. Many observers interpret OBOR as China’s answer to the US domination of global trade. The country itself represents it as a project of transnational and regional cooperation that is to realize mutual interests in economic development as well as cultural exchange and understanding. In any case, OBOR initiatives have already impacted the lives of many people in the countries involved. Southeast Asia in particular, but also large parts of Africa, are already in the grip of Chinese investments.

In this one-day workshop, we will jointly explore how the social sciences can explore the contours of a new China-centred globalization.

Program

9:30 Welcome and Introduction (Susanne Brandtstädter & Nora Sausmikat)

9:45 Morning Session:
Stephanie Fried (Ulu Foundation): "Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Projects and Safeguards in Indonesia"
Korinna Horta (Urgewalt): “The work of Urgewalt on the role of the AIIB in  Chinas Silk Road Strategy"
Wolfram Schaffar (Vienna): The Iron Silk Road and the Iron Fist of the Military: China’s High-Speed Rail Policy and its Impact on Thailand 

12:00 -13:00 Lunch

13:00 -16:00 Afternoon Session:
Matthew Erie (Oxford): "China's Law and Development Moment? Thought Experiments Among Participants In And Observers Of OBOR”
Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi (Bern): "Roadwork: OBOR and infrastructural challenges at China’s Inner Asian borders"
Solange Guo Chatelard (Brussels): “Chinese footprints in Africa. China-led Globalisation from Below”
Karen Smith Stegen (Jacobs U, Bremen): ‘Understanding OBOR from the Perspective of International Relations Theory”

16:00- 17:30  Concluding Discussion