Ye Explores Genesis, Growth, and Future of China’s BRI

In an appearance on Durham University and 3Sixty Strategic Advisors’ “BRI Dialogue,” Min Ye, Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, discusses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and offers her assessment of the policy ahead of its 10 year anniversary. 

During the program, Ye discusses the genesis, evolution, and future of the BRI past its 10th anniversary in 2023. According to Ye, BRI achieved its initial driver to cohere China’s political actors to foster a more robust domestic and international strategy meaning it will be well worth celebrating next year at its tenth anniversary. She notes that it is important to separate China’s BRI from the country’s foreign policy and its geopolitical relationship with advanced democracies; while the policy has become well known globally and an integral part of the global economy, Ye argues that it is not the sole cause of China’s increased influence and more attention needs to be placed on China’s national rise separate from BRI.

The full program can be viewed below.

Min Ye is the author of Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). Her most recent book, titled The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China: 1998–2018 (Cambridge University Press 2020), explores the motivations and strategies behind China’s global economic expansion and considers the implications of the country’s status as a global power on both China and the world. Read more about Professor Ye on her faculty profile