Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.

When: Wednesday, February 27th, 2019
Time: 9:00 am — 5:00 pm
Location:Richcraft Hall, Second floor conference rooms
Audience:Anyone, Carleton Community, Current Students, Faculty
Contact:Elizabeth Cobbett, ElizabethCobbett@Cunet.Carleton.Ca

This workshop critically assesses the global politics of China’s ambitious new grand strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As the world’s economic centre of gravity progressively moves eastwards, China is extending its trading routes and infrastructure capacity westwards. The term Silk Road (in German Seidenstraße) was first used by the German geographer, Ferdinand von Richthofen, in 1877. Doyle refers to ‘interimperiality,’ the ways in which empires rework networks, ideas, sites, and spaces – which she termed “sedimented infrastructures,” that were, in turn, central to other prior imperial systems. Should we be reading the material components of a world order as being in the process of transformation through the BRI? How can we investigate the role of material infrastructure in sustaining different forms of world order? As Beijing downplays competitive geopolitics and talks instead of common development, win–win cooperation and communities of shared destiny, a guiding question for this workshop is whether these developments will significantly change global politics, and possibly world order.

Workshop Organisers:

  • Elizabeth Cobbett (University of East Anglia): Visiting scholar Bachelor of Global and International Studies (BGInS) program at Carleton University January – April 2019
  • Ray Silvius (University of Winnipeg)

Program (Download as a PDF)

Register

9:00 – 9:30 COFFEE
9:30 – 9:45 Welcome by

  • Christopher Worswick, Associate Dean, Faculty of Public Affairs
  • Neil Gerlach, BGInS Program Director
9:45 – 10:15

Keynote speaker: Jeremy Paltiel, Political Science, Carleton University

The BRI in Perspective: A belt around the concept and an initiative on the road to better understanding
10:15 – 10:30 COFFEE
10:30 – 12:00 Panel 1:

Diego Sanclemente (UCLA) The Antique Belt and Road: China in Central Asia through the First Millennium CE

Piotr Dutkiewicz (Center for Governance and Public Policy, Carleton University) Eurasian Great Projects – EEU & BRI: Assets and Liabilities
12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH
13:00 – 14:30 Panel 2

  • Akif Hasni (Queen’s University) Pakistan and the New Silk Road: Examining CPEC’s effect on Pakistan from a Developmental, Geopolitical and Ecological Perspective
  • Wenjing Gao (Carleton University) Encountering OBOR: India’s Pride and Prejudice?
  • Elizabeth Cobbett (BGInS, Carleton University) Nairobi Financial Centre: Spurred on by China’s Belt & Road Initiative?
14:30 – 14:45 COFFEE
14:45 – 16:15 Panel 3

  •  Gil Lan (Ryerson University) The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI):  Potential Impacts on International Trade Agreements
  •  Martin Geiger (Carleton University) & Andreas Tibbles (Carleton University) The Belt and Road Initiative and China’s growing role as a destination for migrants
  • Ray Silvius (University of Winnipeg) China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Making of World Order Concepts in Real Time
16:30 – 16:45 Concluding remarks

This event is part of 2019 FPA Research Month.