EVENTS

The rollout and development of BRI cooperation is seen as a dynamic process and is discussed in terms of five successive phases: 1) Rollout; 2) Routinization; 3) Community of Shared Destiny; 4) Diversifying aims and adapting to constraints; 5) Covid and post-Covid adjustments. The overall process is seen as progressing from extensive to intensive development; and as successively broadening in scope from economic to political, socio-cultural, and security cooperation. Finally, BRI will be situated in the context of China’s “major power diplomacy” and “great struggle” to realize “a great dream.”

About the Speaker

David Arase has been a professor at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center housed at Nanjing University in China since 2011. Prior to this, he taught for 22 years in the Politics Department of Pomona College in Claremont, CA. His three most recent books are edited volumes: Routledge Handbook on Africa-Asia Relations (Routledge, 2017); China’s Rise and East Asian Order (Palgrave, 2016); and The US-Japan alliance: Balancing Soft and Hard Power in East Asia (Nissan Institute/Routledge, 2010), awarded the Ohira Memorial Foundation Special Prize in 2011. Arase has lectured widely and published numerous articles, monographs, and commentaries on East Asian and Indo-Pacific relations.

About the Chair

Ashok K. Kantha has been the Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies since 2017. A career diplomat, Kantha was Ambassador of India to China until January 2016. Prior to this, he was Secretary (East) at the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, with responsibility for about 65 countries in India’s extended neighbourhood. His previous assignments include High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka and Malaysia, Consul General in Hong Kong, Deputy Chief of Mission in Kathmandu (Nepal), and Joint Secretary (East Asia) in the Ministry of External Affairs. Earlier, Kantha served in different capacities at Indian Missions in Singapore, China and the USA, and at headquarters in New Delhi. In his diplomatic career spanning over 38 years, Kantha specialized in Asian affairs, with a particular focus on China.

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