MARIA ADELE CARRAI

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China’s Adaptive Governance: A Tale of Two BRI Railroad Megaprojects in East Africa

Date: January, 2021 | Published in: SOAS China Institute Blog.

Development financing for infrastructure has become one of China’s key instruments for economic cooperation and engagement abroad, concomitant with its Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2013. Since the introduction of its Going Out policy in 1999, China’s government has prioritized the improvement of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental performance among Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Many commentators have expressed concerns that China’s development financing both falls short of a Western model—which promotes good governance and high social and environmental standards—and might even seek to replace it with a new Chinese developmental paradigm. However, such anxieties neglect to adequately consider the Chinese central government’s non-interference policy, which renders Chinese enterprises pliable to the regulations and standards that suit individual African countries  Read More

The China Model And Its Reach In Africa: Toward A New Partnership?

Date: January, 2021 | Published in: The Brown Journal of World Affairs.

China’s rise as a world power over the past few decades has been accompanied by its increased engagement with the world. Its relationship with Africa is no exception. Since the Third Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2006, China-Africa relations have been flourishing. China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009 and is the most influential developing country investing in the continent. In light of what has been defined as a new “Cold War” between China and the United States, Africa has become a battlefield for narratives, influence, and resources between the two superpowers.  Read More

 

African Sovereign Debt at a time of Pandemic: Legal justifications for suspension or cancellation

Date: May , 2020 | Published in: Afronomics Analysis.

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is disastrous for the global south. The economic downturn will particularly affect Africa, which was already struggling with a massive financial gap in funding. Oxfam predicts that shutting down economies to prevent the virus from spreading could destroy vital industries and set back the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa by up to 30 years. The African Union Commission estimated that Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) could shrink by up to 4.51 percent, resulting in the loss of 20 million jobs. Read More
 

How Will China Shape Global Governance?

Date: May 9 , 2020 | Published in: ChinaFile Conversation.

The current global governance system is based on a multilateral architecture that reflects the dominant legacy of Western powers and liberal ideals. In the first two decades after its founding, the People’s Republic of China rejected international law and organizations in the name of proletarian revolution. Since China’s subsequent “reform and opening up” and its rapprochement with the liberal West in the 1970s, it has begun to integrate with these multilateral institutions at a rapid pace while continuing to assert the importance of sovereignty. Read More
 

12 experts on how the US should hold China accountable for the coronavirus

Date: April 16, 2020 | Published in: Vox.

Pressure is mounting on President Donald Trump to take action against China for its role in hiding the severity of the coronavirus outbreak. And what he chooses to do could greatly impact not only the future of the pandemic, but also the world’s most important global relationship. Republican lawmakers want Trump to consider harsh measures against Beijing such as sanctioning Chinese leaders, opening a formal investigation into the disease’s origins, removing Chinese pharmaceutical companies from America’s supply chain, and more. Read More
 

Corporate Social Responsibility along the Chinese Financed Railway Mega-Project in East Africa

Date:  March 1, 2020 | Published in: Oxford University China, Law and Development Research Brief

Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China has become an important country for development financing, especially for large infrastructure projects. In 2009, its official finance reached US$70 billion and in 2016, its outward Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) surpassed its inward FDI making China the third largest exporter of FDIs in the world.1 Such investments and financing can create political leverage and also have profound repercussions on a host country’s legal, economic, and political systems. Given the global scope of its development financing, many commentators have expressed concern that China is setting a new development paradigm that discards the Western model aimed at promoting good governance, best practice, high standards, and a comprehensive approach to development involving the rule of law, debt sustainability and social and environmental responsibilities Read More
 

The Novel Coronavirus and its impact on China-Italy relations

Date: March 15 , 2020 | Published in: Taihe Institute

On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission sent its first report to the World Health Organization (WHO), revealing that it had recorded a significant number of pneumonia cases from unknown causes throughout the Chinese province of Hubei. The virus has been named COVID-19, more commonly known as the coronavirus, started from China around mid-December. In light of the rapid spreading of the virus—which has now reached over 114 countries, with nearly120,000 confirmed cases and 4,300 deaths—1the WHO defined the situation as a “global pandemic” on March 11. Since the epidemic began, the economic consequences have been catastrophic. The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted not only the frontier sectors such as tourism and air transport, but also crucial links along the global value chain linking distant places together. Read More
 

Conversation on EU-China relations

Date: April 8, 2019 | Published in: Oxford University China, Law and Development Research Brief

When Xi Jinping visited Europe in late March, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker portrayed the future of EU-China relations in mixed terms: “We are strategic partners, and yes, rivals,” he said, “but competition among us is a good thing.” Indeed, EU member states have been at odds about China for a while, and deteriorating U.S.-China relations are complicating matters. The U.S. is pressuring its European allies to limit the market presence of the Chinese technology giant Huawei Read More
 

From Defensive to Assertive: China’s White Paper on Human Rights

Date: March 30, 2019 | Published in: Verfassungs blog

On December 12th 2018 the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) published a white paper (WP) titled ‘Progress in Human Rights over the 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up in China.’1) The paper, which seems to be targeting more foreign audiences than a domestic one, reflects upon the progress China has made in the field of human rights since Deng Xiaoping’s liberalization and opening up reforms that began in 1978. The 40-year anniversary of the reforms that led China to become a global economy was broadly celebrated in China, not only for the country’s achievements in its gradual liberalization brought it to the forefront of the global world, but also because its successful model based on ‘socialism with Chinese characteristic’ can begin to be exported abroad, including when it comes to human rights. Especially after Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, one of the most dramatic realizations for the US and the so-called ‘liberal world’ was that the policy of engagement had failed. Read More
 

Will the Belt and Road Initiative change China’s stance on sovereignty and non-interference?

Date: Feb 8, 2019 | Published in: GlobTaxGov, Leiden University

China has been deemed to be the stronghold of Westphalia sovereignty. However, its increased investments and interests abroad, which followed the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, might change its stance on the principles of sovereignty and non-interference. Since the first systematic translation of international law into Chinese after the Second Opium War (1856–60), sovereignty has become a key pillar of Chinese foreign policy Read More

In the Eye of the Beholder: The China Model as a discourse

Date: May 17, 2018 | Published in: Harvard University Fairbank Center Blog

The idea of a “China Model,” referring to the People Republic of China’s (PRC) distinctive developmental path as a fast track to economic growth, continues to attract attention from both the public and scholars. More recently, the term has been used to channel general anxiety in the West about China’s global rise and its possible negative implications for the liberal order.  Read More

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