Date: November 11, 2024, 18:00-19:30

Location:  ZHG 004

Abstract: Infrastructure is a major component of China’s presence in global development and is also central to larger debates about China’s evolving roles in the world economy and international politics. This talk will present a comprehensive account of major, Chinese government-financed infrastructure projects across the Global South since 1949 to the present day. New historical and contemporary datasets show Chinese global infrastructure’s distinctiveness in terms of its historical tenacity and massive contemporary scope. The data include hundreds of 20th-century overseas infrastructure projects that predate contemporary China’s infrastructure spree during the Going Out strategy and the Belt and Road Initiative. These projects and their underlying political logics suggest that global infrastructure will remain a crucial component of China’s role in international development even as the BRI evolves toward smaller, more sustainable, and digital infrastructure forms. The talk will also feature new findings from analyses of observational and experimental data on how overseas infrastructure projects relate to China’s international influence.

Bio: Austin Strange is an Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. He teaches and researches international relations, international development, and Chinese foreign policy. He is the author of Chinese Global Infrastructure (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and co-author of Banking on Beijing: The Aims and Impacts of China’s Overseas Development Program (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Austin’s research has appeared or is forthcoming in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, and Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others. In 2022 Austin was awarded the University of Hong Kong’s Early Career Teaching Award. From 2023-2025 he is a fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations Public Intellectuals Program, and previously he was a fellow at the Wilson Center and the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program. Austin earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, an M.A. from Zhejiang University, and a B.A. from College of William and Mary.