Unpacking the Belt and Road Initiative: a Pangea event
On Thursday, September 5, Pangea continued our mission of learning and educating the wider community about important global issues. The issue at hand was China’s foreign investment strategy, particularly their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). About 35 people, including a strong presence from our friends at the Washington State China Relations Council, gathered in one of the community rooms at the 2100 Building for a lecturer and discussion.
Our expert guest and presenter was Spencer Cohen, PhD, a senior economist with Community Attributes Inc., a demographics and economics research firm. Dr. Cohen, who earned his PhD from University of Washington, is an economic geographer with considerable expertise in Chinese economic and political issues.
Dr. Cohen provided some much needed context on the Belt and Road Initiative from its origins in 2013 to today and its massive scale—China has pledged $1 trillion dollars for infrastructure projects in the Asia-Pacific and these BRI projects touch over 60 percent of the world’s population based on the countries where the investment will occur.
We also learned about China’s motivations for these large scale investments, opportunities and concerns, and discussed the implications from development and philanthropic perspectives.
A sincere thanks to everyone who attended, the event organizers, and especially to Dr. Spencer Cohen for his insights and his time!