News

Silk Roads Workshop for Teachers

How might it be possible to integrate the results of research on the BRI into education on globalisation? A workshop for teachers, organised by Ulrike Cordier and John Njenga Karugia, addressed this theme and others in late 2023.

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New Insights about the Belt and Road from (Eur)Asia to (East)Africa: Strategies, Narratives and Reactions

World Café
Tuesday, 28 November 2023 | 4pm – ­­5:30pm

Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien (ZOiS), Mohrenstrasse 60, 10117 Berlin

10 years after Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as the New Silk Road, it is time to take stock. On this occasion, we are pooling the diverse expertise of ZOiS and its partners for you in the format of a World Café to present new insights about local perspectives on the BRI and the goals China is pursuing with this initiative.

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BRI, CPEC and Road Safety in Pakistan

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the biggest projects in transportation, freight, road, rail, air, and maritime linkage in the history of the world, but it concerns itself inadequately with road safety. Out of 1.2 to 1.3 trillion US$, the transport investment is 144 billion to 304 billion. BRI transport projects are estimated to increase trade by between 2.8 and 9.7% for corridor economies (Pakistan, Indonesia and African continent) and between 1.7 and 6.2% for the world (ibid). With this huge volume of trade, one may ask: are road safety, carbon emission, environmental degradation and smog mitigating measures adopted in this mega initiative? BRI transport projects will contribute to lifting 7.6 million people from extreme poverty and 32 million people from moderate poverty (Ibid) but will security and safety of the road users be considered adequately?

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Localizing Confucius Institutes Through African Languages: The Confucius Institute in Dar es Salaam

Two Confucius Institutes exist in Tanzania. Their construction was financed by China and they are hosted by the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Dodoma. The Tanzanian Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Prof. Dr. Aldin Mutembei is a Fellow of our De:Link // Re:Link research project. Prof. Mutembei gave a very insightful public lecture at the Institute for Asian and African Studies here at the Humboldt University zu Berlin.

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Talk: The Power of Transcultural Politics Along China’s BRI

On June 15, 2023 Jamila Adeli and Linda Ammann gave a presentation at the University of Vienna. Under the title “The power of transcultural politics along China’s Belt and Road Initiative: The promise of culture in Sino-African relations” we introduced a decidedly (trans)cultural perspective on the BRI and its reciprocal relations in so-called new silk

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Dr. Beril Ocaklı

Guest Lecture: Dr. Beril Ocaklı on Re/searching Connections: Geopolitics and Poetics of the BRI Infrastructure in Eurasia

A decade on, China through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) continues to occupy minds and political geographies. Unveiled a decade ago at the Nazarbayev University Campus in Astana, Kazakhstan, the BRI remains an unprecedented undertaking for seamlessly interconnecting people and places in Asia with Africa and Europe through multifarious large-scale infrastructure. Drawing on published

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