The Belt and Road Podcast

How does Chinese capital alter center-periphery relations in Kenya?
Can peripheral groups have meaningful agency with Chinese state entities?
Who determines, and what is considered "local" in local content agreements built into Chinese-financed infrastructure projects?
On this Episode, Erik sits down Elisa Gambino to speak about her forthcoming paper entitled: "Chinese participation in Kenyan Transport Infrastructure: Reshaping Power-Geometries" that looks to answer these questions and more by using Kenya's Lamu Port as a case study.
Elisa Gambino is a doctoral researcher on the African Governance and Space project at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies. You can read her prior writing on labor relations at the Lamu port here https://theasiadialogue.com/2020/02/26/job-insecurity-labour-contestation-and-everyday-resistance-at-the-chinese-built-lamu-port-site-in-kenya/
Recommendations:
Elisa: 1) Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness by Miriam Driessen
2) Invisible China: A Journey Through Ethnic Borderlands by Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson
Erik: 1) Putting a Dollar Amount on China's Loans in the Developing World by Huang Yufang and Deborah Brautigam
2) For the American audience: Moving to a mid-tier American city. They are more dynamic than coastal cities give them credit for and one can actually afford to live in them! Added bonus if you move to a swing state!

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After a year of record breaking drought, the Mekong River water has level reached a historical low. Continued water stress, which is likely due to climate change, will permanently change the ecology of the region and water stress is already impacting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people across the region dependent upon the river. Proponents of hydrological dam development along the Mekong, which is primarily done by Chinese developers both in China and in downstream countries (Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam), have emphasized the potential for dams to regulate water flow. But recent conditions have raised questions as to whether dams have exacerbated current water stress and how dams could be differently managed to relieve drought conditions. They also have galvanized calls for stronger mechanisms for transnational information sharing and governance - China currently considers water management data a state secret and does not consult downstream countries about the management of its domestic dams. Brian Eyler of the Stimson Center and Alan Basist of Eyes on Earth discuss with Erik Myxter-Iino the growing upstream/downstream river governance issues that have arisen as a result and the future environmental, socioeconomic, and political challenges raised.
Read related articles:
1. How China Turned off the Tap on the Mekong River (Brian Eyler, Stimson Center)
2. Science Shows Chinese Dams are Devastating the Mekong (Brian Eyler, Foreign Policy)
3. Understanding the Mekong's Hydrological Conditions (Alan Basist & Claude Williams, Mekong River Commission)
Recommendations
Brian
In the Dragon's Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century by Sebastian Strangio
Erik
Capital & Ideology by Thomas Piketty

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On this episode, Erik and Juliet speak with Dr. Galen Murton - Assistant Professor at the School of Integrated Sciences at James Madison University - about how China is establishing infrastructure across one of the most unforgiving landscapes in the world. Along the border between Nepal and Tibet, transport and energy infrastructure development are transforming lives and forging a new paradigm of geopolitical engagement between China and its South Asian neighbors.
1) “Trans-Himalayan Power Corridors: Infrastructural Politics and China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal."
2) “Facing the Fence: The Production and Performance of a Himalayan Border in Global Contexts.”
Recommendations:
Galen - Anything written about Nepal by Sam Cowan and Broughton Coburn
Juliet - Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia by Enze Han
Erik - Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino

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On this episode Erik speaks with returning guest Dr. Alvin Camba about his latest research paper "How Chinese firms approach investment risk: strong leaders, cancellation, and pushback" (link to paper)
This groundbreaking research uses hundreds of in-depth interviews with top officials from China, Chinese SOEs, state-owned banks as well as Philippine and Indonesian political and economic elite to get a glimpse at how Chinese firms view the strength of a foreign leader, how that affects their investment decisions and how miscalculating strength can lead to undesirable outcomes for Chinese investors and/or State.
Alvin Camba is an assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He received his PhD in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University and is also a non-resident fellow at the Climate Policy Lab at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Recommendations
Alvin:
1. How Duterte Strong-Armed Chinese Dam-builders but weakened Philippine Institutions
2. How China Lends: A Rare look into 100 debt contracts with foreign governments. Anna Gelpern, Sebastian Horn, Scott Morris, Brad Parks, Christopher Trebesch at AIDDATA
Erik:
1. Get a treadmill desk!
2. The nihilistic electronic noise music of Pharmakon - specifically recommending the song No Natural Order

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Erik is joined by Winslow Robertson and Owakhela Kankhwende to discuss their chapter of the book From Trump to Biden and Beyond: Reimagining U.S.-China Relations, entitled "U.S. Strategy Vis-À-Vis China's Presence in the African Continent: Description and Prescription".
Winslow Robertson is a PhD student at IESE Business School at the University of Navarra, where he focuses on Chinese provincial SOEs and the Belt and Road. He is also the founder of Cowries and Rice, a Sino-Africa management consultancy.
Owakhela Kankhwende is a recent graduate with a MAS in business analytics from Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business. He has been a research analyst at Pivotal Advisors, and is currently a data analyst at Insider.
Recommendations:
Owakhela:

• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961)
• UnLearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life by Humble the Poet (2019)

Winslow:

• From Politics to Business: How a state-led fund is investing in Africa? The case of the China-Africa Development Fund by Hangwei Li (2020)
• The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order by Rush Doshi (2021)
• The Dragon Prince series on Netflix (2018-19)

Erik:

• I Want You Back film (2022)
• Promises album by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra (2021)

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