CSS News

China’s recent foray into multilateral banking brings the country multiple financial and geopolitical benefits, argue Chris Humprey and Linda Maduz in this CSS Analysis. The early years of operations suggest that the potential of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank is considerable – both as international funding mechanisms and as platforms of international cooperation, including with Europe.

China’s presence in the Middle East is on the rise, particularly in the framework of its Belt and Road Initiative. As the US draws down its commitments in the region, Europe will need to consider what greater Chinese involvement in the region means for its interests, argues Lisa Watanabe in this new CSS Analysis.

Kazakhstan is a linchpin for trade and transport links on the Eurasian continent – for China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) and beyond – due to its location, vast landmass and energy reserves. It is both the object and the subject of Chinese, Russian and Western geopolitical interests. In this CSS Analysis, Benno Zogg argues that the Kazakhstani case shows that the shape and success of the BRI largely depend on internal, not external, factors.

President Xi Jinping has outlined plans to construct huge infrastructural links to better connect China with the rest of the world. This strategic vision of a “New Silk Road” is now more often referred to as the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative. Beijing is allocating huge amounts of finance to the project, but China’s neighbors remain wary of OBOR’s geopolitical implications.

Beijing constructs huge infrastructural links to better connect China with the rest of the world. China’s neighbors remain wary of geopolitical implications.

Notwithstanding the Fukushima disaster, a number of threshold countries are planning to start programs for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, including in Asia. In its program, Vietnam is already at a relatively advanced stage. Currently, however, there is no evidence of a Vietnamese atomic weapons program. But a more aggressive policy of China could increase Hanoi’s interest in creating its own nuclear deterrent.