The UK’s Belt and Road Strategy after Brexit

The UK’s Belt and Road Strategy after Brexit

Sir Douglas Flint, the UK’s Special Envoy to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), will be among the speakers at the upcoming Asia House conference exploring the UK’s post-Brexit approach to the Beijing-backed infrastructure programme.

Since it was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI has become one of the world’s most active infrastructure development projects. Spanning more than sixty countries and with a predicted overall cost of US$1.2-1.3 trillion by 2027, the BRI is playing a crucial role in addressing the world’s infrastructure deficit. Having recently been enshrined into the Chinese Communist Party constitution, it is evident that this flagship foreign policy initiative is here to stay.

Given its extensive scale and reach, numerous governments and businesses have established strategies specifically designed to capture the value or manage the impacts of the BRI. For the UK, the BRI stakes are very high: not only are many countries deemed of key strategic importance to the UK being heavily impacted, the BRI is also influencing wider geopolitical rivalries. As the UK leaves the EU, it will be more important than ever for the UK government to explore bilateral or multilateral avenues to develop a coherent and forward-looking BRI strategy.

This conference will convene leading experts to share their analysis on a key issue facing UK foreign policy.

Asia House is holding this conference in partnership with the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute, which brings together the University of Nottingham’s world leading research and expertise in Asia through engagement with practitioners and partners in the region. Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, Dr Benjamin Barton, will speak at the conference, and will follow-up on key issues raised in his policy brief on the same subject, originally published in June 2019.

AGENDA

8:30 – 9:00 Registration and networking breakfast

9:00 – 9:30 Keynote address: Sir Douglas Flint, Chairman of Standard Life Aberdeen, the UK’s Special Envoy to the Belt and Road Initiative, former Group Chairman of HSBC

9:30 – 10:30 Panel discussion and Q&A:

– Stephen King, Senior Economic Adviser, HSBC
– Dr Benjamin Barton, Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham’s Malaysia Campus
– Ma Hui, Minister, Chinese Embassy in the UK

SPEAKERS

Sir Douglas Flint, Chairman of Standard Life Aberdeen and the UK’s Special Envoy to the Belt and Road Initiative

Stephen King, Senior Economic Adviser, HSBC

Benjamin Barton, Assistant Professor in the School of Politics, History and International Relations at the University of Nottingham’s Malaysia Campus (Kuala Lumpur)