News
Myanmar eyes China’s trade plan for much-needed infrastructure
Construction minister rejects claims of a crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine, a hub for Chinese investment.Minister for Construction U Win Khaing told the Asean and Asia Forum in Singapore on Thursday that his country needed to improve its infrastructure quickly to cope with the ...
Liu Zhen
China’s Mekong plans threaten disaster for countries downstream
Thirty million people depend for a living on the Mekong, the great Asian river that runs through Southeast Asia from its origins in the snowfields of Tibet to its end in the delta region of Vietnam, where it fertilizes one of the world’s richest agricultural ...
Richard Bernstein
China Communication Construction eyes rail projects in Asean countries
China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), a major player in China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, said they are looking at rail projects in Asean countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, in an effort to expand in trans-Asian rail routes. Keep reading ...
Summer Zhen
Govt urged to establish Belt and Road taskforce
The Myanmar government is urged to take a proactive role and form a taskforce to carve out its involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). An adviser to the National League for Democracy-led government stressed the need to scrutinize debt while others voiced the ...
Su Phyo Win, Chan Mya Htwe, and Thompson Chau
Laos working with neighbours to increase rail freight transport: official
Lao authorities are working with their counterparts in several neighbouring countries to finalise logistical procedures for increased railway freight transport, a senior government official has said. Deputy Director General of the Railway Department, Mr Sengthavisay Malivanh, told news editors from 24 media publications of 20 ...
Plans put in action to turn Laos into a land link, Asian editors told
Laos has taken steps to pursue its plan to build a railway network that will connect the landlocked country with its neighbours, the rest of the region and the world, railway authorities told visiting news editors from Asian countries. In its latest move, the Lao government ...
State Counsellor stresses Belt and Road needs to align national priorities
At the BRI summit in May, the State Counsellor stressed that BRI-led projects should complement national priorities and take into account the welfare of local communities, and highlighted the need to ensure responsible business practice. Local analysts and commentators in Myanmar have spelt out some ...
Is the Belt and Road Initiative globalizing China’s national security policy?

Chinese security policy experts use potential threats to BRI projects to highlight the necessity of a globalized security posture. The suicide bomb attack on the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan in August 2016 highlighted China’s rising external vulnerability in a region at the heart of its signature ...