The announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative splashed China onto the world’s overseas lending scene. In the more than a decade since, Beijing has become a major lender to the developing world. This webinar brought together a panel of experts to discuss how Chinese development lending has responded in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our panelists explored the range of industries in which China continues to invest, the preferred vehicles for lending, as well as similarities and differences across regional recipients.
This event was jointly co-sponsored by the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University and the Africa-China Initiative.
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Christian-Géraud Neema is the Africa editor of the China-Global South Project and a nonresident scholar in the Carnegie Africa Program. He is an expert analyst on China-Africa relations. His research focused on natural resources revenue management in resources-rich countries. He is a frequent commentator and contributor on China’s engagement in the mining sector in Africa and the political economy of the mining sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Rebecca Ray is a senior academic researcher at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. She leads the Forests, Agriculture and Indigenous Rights in the Belt and Road Initiative (FAIR-BRI) workstream, which produces policy-relevant research on local social and environmental risks and impacts of Chinese overseas economic activity. She also leads GDP Center research on China in Latin America. She oversees the annual China-Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Bulletin series.
Sheng Zhang is a leading research analyst at the Chinese Development Finance Program (CDFP) at AidData. He specializes in development finance, infrastructure projects, and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) research. His work advances AidData’s mission to deepen global understanding of sustainable development and investment practices while significantly enhancing the program’s capacity to generate detailed insights into development finance through advanced geocoding techniques. Sheng is also a co-author of the AidData report “Harboring Global Ambitions,” which explores China’s global ports footprint and its implications for future naval bases.
Eleanor M. Albert (moderator) is a research fellow with the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in political science at George Washington University. Her research interests include Chinese foreign and domestic policy, as well as China’s participation in global governance.