Description
China Dialogue Trust is a registered charity in the United Kingdom with offices in London and Beijing, editors in New Delhi, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Karachi, and São Paulo, and a network of expert contributors and partners around the world. The Trust researches, writes, commissions, edits and publishes news reports and analysis of environmental affairs, stimulating the exchange of information and ideas between readers in diverse geographies. As its name suggests, the Trust’s work has a principal focus on China, but it also devotes attention to South Asia and the Himalayan region. Since 2008, the Foundation has supported its bilingual English/Chinese website chinadialogue and broader efforts to examine China’s emerging global environmental footprint, particularly in Latin America. The Trust now plans to train its lens on China’s relationship with Southeast Asia.
In late 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping first promoted the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to open new land and maritime trade routes and infrastructure corridors across Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, and beyond. Southeast Asia plays a key role in the BRI, with China planning a network of railways, roads, ports and special economic zones linking landlocked provinces of southwest China with emerging markets in the region. This has the potential to transform regional economies and bring development to remote and marginalized areas, but could also lead to over-extraction of resources and environmental damage.
With the abandonment of the Trans Pacific Partnership by the United States and uncertainty about U.S. security guarantees in the region, Southeast Asian countries are more likely to seek, and indeed are seeking, opportunities for cooperation with China. In Thailand, for example, China has not only provided the technology for a $5.2 billion high-speed railway between the two countries, but also has revived plans, in collaboration with a group of retired Thai generals and businessmen with close links to China, to construct a $28 billion, 135-kilometer canal across southern Thailand to connect the Indian and Pacific oceans. Projects of similar scale are underway in Myanmar and Cambodia, and Chinese banks continue to lend to coal projects in Southeast Asia, encouraging the construction of significantly more coal-fired power plants in countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Trust requests support to produce in-depth reporting and analysis on potential climate and environmental impacts from China’s growing influence and investment in Southeast Asia, and the risks associated with trade, extraction and exploitation of the region’s natural resources and fisheries. With our funds, the Trust would hire a regional editor and develop a network of regional reporters and experts; produce a series of online reports in English and Chinese; and disseminate the content through social media and syndication agreements with local and vernacular presses. In addition, it would publish an interactive, multimedia map surveying Chinese investment in energy, infrastructure and extractive projects; and organize a public event and workshop that connects project findings with key figures in civil society, policymaking, media and development agencies.
chinadialogue ’s content is freely available and published under a Creative Commons license. All published materials remain archived on the website. Its top five readership locations in 2017 were the U.S., China, the UK, India and Hong Kong, with 44 percent of the readership accessing content published in Chinese. The Trust engages in outreach to academic institutions and has strong relationships with the think tank community. It already has a network of partners in Southeast Asia, particularly with respect to regional water issues; our grant would help extend its reach. Executive editor Sam Geall writes, “We aim to promote a better understanding and informed debate of how rising Chinese power can drive more sustainable development in the region, or pose new risks.”
Support for China Dialogue Trust’s operations and other programs comes from funders including the Waterloo Foundation, Oak Foundation, ClimateWorks and the UK’s Department for International Development.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $200,000 to China Dialogue Trust to support reporting and analysis on the environmental impacts of China’s trade and investment activities in Southeast Asia.
Approved by the Board: March 7, 2018
