John Njenga Karugia’s documentary film New Silk Roads in Local and Global Politics is currently screening at various locations around Germany and beyond. In Berlin, the next event will take place on Thursday, 20 November. We look forward to seeing you there. The film is a journey along the maritime and land routes of the
Does China’s growing role in Eastern Europe challenge the EU’s approach to promoting development in the region? Tanja Börzel, Julia Langbein, Lunting Wu & Valentin Krüsmann explore this question in their latest open-access article in the journal Global Policy. Abstract Against the backdrop of China’s growing engagement in Eastern Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative
From Khalisa Sarkar Land to Land Reforms: Legal Liminality, State Control, and Resistance in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan Nadia Ali’s latest article explores how infrastructural expansion under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), alongside growing state and private interests in tourism and mineral extraction, has altered the region of Gilgit-Baltistan. Abstract This article examines the evolution of the
We are thrilled to announce the first in our new series of lunchtime talks: “Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Investment at Port Sohar: A BRI-Era Perspective“. Dr. Abdullah Al Abri and Dr. Dawud Ansari will discuss the interaction of infrastructure and sustainability at the Omani port and freezone, located near the Strait of Hormuz. The lecture will
Our stand at the 25th anniversary edition of the Long Night of the Sciences included something for all ages. Here’s a taste of what we presented at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on 28 June 2025. A map of the Belt and Road Initiative’s land and sea routes, designed by Iaroslav Boretskii (ZOiS), helped visitors visualise the
On 22 May 2025, Jana Hönke, professor and chair for Sociology in Africa at the University of Bayreuth, gave a fascinating talk based on the edited volume Africa’s Global Infrastructures: South–South Transformations in Practice. The talk examined Chinese projects within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Africa. It asked how Chinese
As the second phase of De:link//Re:link will focus more on the implications of the BRI in Southeast Asian countries, members of our network took part in the HU’s Indonesian Studies Day on 9 May 2025. Prof. Dr. Claudia Derichs, whose research focuses on Indonesia, chaired a roundtable on the subject of China, Indonesia and the
The conference marking the end of our first phase of funding took place at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on 23 and 24 May 2024. Titled ‘Local Roads, Global Belts’, the event covered the wide spectrum of research on the BRI that we have produced since 2021. The programme consisted of panels concieved by the partners in
Since the De:link//Re:link research consortium formed in April 2021, there have been dramatic political changes in (Eur)Asia. Among them the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan later that year, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The expansion of the BRICS group of nations added to significant shifts in international relations. These
It is not only goods, financial capital or technologies that are being traded, negotiated and circulated along the China-led Belt and Road Initiative but also values, emotions and cultural practices. The latter are often decisive when imagining and establishing a transregional infrastructure of the scale of the BRI. This book explores connections and disconnections along
