Guest Lecture and Discussion with Andrea Ghiselli

Based on his book Protecting China's Interests Overseas: Securitization and Foreign Policy, Dr. Andrea Ghiselli's talk will revolve around China's approach to protect its interests overseas with the goal of providing new insights into the dynamics of contemporary Chinese foreign policy making, and prompting new considerations regarding how we understand China's rise. Instead of looking at this issue through the lens of great power competition, the key argument is that the securitization of non-traditional security issues played a crucial role in the development of China’s strategy to defend its interests overseas, especially after 2011.

The first part of the talk will focus on how Chinese economic and human presence grew so much in unstable regions like the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Ghiselli will discuss the tensions between the policies aimed at promoting Chinese businesses abroad and the government’s attempts to make Chinese companies responsible for the success and safety of their projects overseas. The second part of the talk will take into consideration how the civilian and military elites’ approach to the protection of Chinese nationals and assets overseas evolved over time. In particular, the focus of the analysis will be on the institutional developments and policy initiatives that were launched as a new consensus emerged clearly in the aftermath of the evacuation of 36,000 Chinese citizens from Libya in 2011. The third and final part of the talk will revolve around how we should understand China’s expanding security footprint abroad and its potential evolution in the future.  https://global.oup.com/academic/product/protect-chinas-interests-overseas-9780198867395?cc=us&lang=en&#

A live Q&A will follow the talk. The audience is encouraged to write their questions into the Chat field for inclusion during this session.