About this Episode
The G7 recently announced the Build Back Better World Partnership (B3W), a commitment to invest up to $40 trillion to plug the infrastructure gap in low- and middle-income countries exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis.
The B3W is pitched as a challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and a key part of the US plan to counter China’s growing global influence.
The conversation for this week’s edition is centered around a comparison between the US backed B3W and China’s BRI. Our guest, Jonathan Hillman, dissects the merits and demerits of B3W and draws parallels between this project and previous US efforts to counter China, like the Blue Dot Network.
About this Episode
For this week’s episode of Dragon Road we are joined by Jonathan Hillman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). At CSIS, he is the Director of the Reconnecting Asia Project, an open-source database dedicated to tracking BRI projects. Before joining CSIS, Hillman served at the Office of the US Trade Representative as a policy adviser. Jonathan has also recently authored a book titled “ The Emperor’s New Road, China and the Project of the Century”.
Publications by the Guest
- The Quad’s Strategic Infrastructure Play
- Red Flags: Triaging China’s Projects in the Western Balkans
- Huawei Strikes Back
- Mapping China’s Digital Silk Road
- The Secret History of Hambantota
- China Is Watching You
A Non-Resident Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC and president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, a political risk advisory firm focused on the Middle East and South Asia.
