The Belt-Road Initiative and COVID-19, with Min Ye

Speaker: Min Ye, Associate Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Moderator: Michael Szonyi, Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History; Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University China’s Belt and Road Initiative, pronounced by Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the “project of the century”, now faces the most uncertain fate in China and abroad. In this new research, Min Ye evaluates policy discourses, interest groups, and nascent BRI networks in China and concludes that domestic drivers for the BRI have not been altered by the Covid-19. However, the external environment and demand for BRI are predicted to change, and we are likely to see important shifts in the BRI implementation in the future. Min Ye is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her research situates in the nexus between domestic and global politics and the intersection of economics and security, with a focus on China, India, and the regional relations. Her publications include The Belt, Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China 1998 — 2018 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). Min Ye has received grants and fellowship in the U.S and Asia, including a Smith Richardson Foundation grant (2016-2018), East Asia Peace, Prosperity, and Governance Fellowship (2013), Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program post-doctoral fellowship (2009-2010), and Millennium Education Scholarship in Japan (2006). In 2014-2016, the National Committee on the U.S-China Relations selects Min Ye as a Public Intellectual Program fellow. In 2020, Ye is selected as the Rosenberg Scholar of East Asian Studies at Suffolk University. In 2009-2010, Min Ye was the China and the World post-doctoral fellow at the Fairbank Center. She has since been an active participant in programs at the Fairbank Center. In 2016-2018, she served in the Faculty Council of Harvard-Yenching Institute. She currently mentors visiting scholars at HYI. Min Ye is a National Committee on US-China Relations PIP fellow (PIP 4). Ye’s recently published a new book, “The Belt, Road and Beyond.” This event was recorded on Zoom on Wednesday May 20, 2020.