The Belt and Road Initiative in Mainland Southeast Asia: An Update Seminar

Refreshments will be provided.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative continues to unfold in a range of infrastructure projects on its periphery.  This seminar will consider a key project in the context of China-Southeast Asia economic integration, the much-anticipated Singapore Kunming Rail Line (SKRL). The first stage of this project has been completed in Laos but is progressing slowly in the adjacent state of Thailand. This seminar will review social and economic impacts and implementation in the mainland Southeast Asian region.

A./Prof Keith Barney (Crawford, ANU) will examine Laos’ sovereign debt crisis, in the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative lending and investment in energy, hydropower and transport infrastructure. Dr Barney is currently serving as the Head of Department for the Crawford School of Public Policy’s Resources Environment & Development (RE&D) Group at the Australian National University. He has conducted research on the changing geographies of environment and development, and natural resource policy in Southeast Asia since 1999. He is particularly interested in resource-making and its articulation with property rights and livelihoods, market governance, state-building, and systems of authoritarian rule.

Dr Kesone Kanhalikham (National University of Laos) will present on the hopes of villagers and migrant workers as the Boten Special Economic Zone (SEZ), located on the Laos-China border, undergoes major redevelopment due to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) policy and the completion of the Laos-China Railway in late 2021. Dr Kanhalikham is a Deputy Head of Division at the National University of Laos and a researcher in urban development and Chinese investment in Laos. She is particularly interested in the urbanisation process in Vientiane in Laos, with a particular focus on the impact of Chinese investment on public space, land, and wetlands and how these changes are affecting the traditional livelihood of the local population.

Dr Gregory Raymond (Bell, ANU) will present an update on the progress of the Sino-Thai high-speed rail project, based on fieldwork undertaken in January 2024. Gregory Raymond is a senior lecturer at the Australian National University (ANU) researching Southeast Asian defence, politics and foreign relations, with a focus on Thailand and the Mekong states. He convenes the Global China Research Spoke for the ANU Centre for China in the World and the ASEAN Australia Defence Postgraduate Scholarship Program for the Australian Department of Defence. He is the author of Thai Military Power: A Culture of Strategic Accommodation (NIAS Press 2018) and the lead author of The United States-Thai Alliance: History, Memory and Current Developments (Routledge, 2021). Before joining the ANU, Greg worked for the Australian government in the strategic and international policy areas of the Department of Defence.

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation plan please contact ciw@anu.edu.au.