Chris Devonshire-Ellis: China’s Silk Road & Eurasian Game
Geopolitics & Empire
Geopolitics & Empire
4.2 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2018
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chris Devonshire-Ellis provides insight into the Belt and Road based on extensive travel in the region and sees China as spreading peace through trade.
Show Notes
The Belt and Road: Five Opportunities for Foreign Investors https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2018/03/30/belt-road-five-opportunities-foreign-investors
Belt and Road Initiative Ushering in New Trade, Logistics, Blockchain, and 5G Technologies https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2018/03/22/belt-road-initiative-ushering-new-trade-logistics-blockchain-5g-technologies
Venezuela to Pay Russia With Own Cryptocurrency for Automotive Parts https://sputniknews.com/business/201804041063187781-venezuela-pay-russia-cryptocurrency
China’s ‘petro-yuan’: The end of the dollar hegemony? https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/countingthecost/2018/03/china-petro-yuan-dollar-hegemony-180331091248813.html
NSA Monitors Financial World http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies-on-international-bank-transactions-a-922430.html
Website
https://www.silkroadbriefing.com
Books
China’s New Economic Silk Road: The Great Eurasian Game & The String of Pearls
About Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Chris Devonshire-Ellis is the Founder of Dezan Shira & Associates and Chairman of the firms International Board of Equity Partners & Directors.
He is now based mainly in Europe, however has a 30 year career in Asia, including 25 years living in China. He advises multinational corporations and foreign governments on their investment strategies for China and Asia, and has expanded this in recent years to include the OBOR regions, particularly in regard to European integration with China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. His 2014 book “China’s New Economic Silk Road“has been a best seller.
Over the past 25 years he has facilitated several billion euros worth of investment into Asia on behalf of his clients. Chris was ranked one of the top ten most important consultants in China by Accountancy Age Magazine in 2011, and ranked 1st in influence by Asia Law in 2015. He is an occasional lecturer at Cambridge Universities Dept. of Politics and International Studies, while his books and papers are regular course material at multiple Universities across China and Europe.
He also fulfills pro-bono work on a number of Intra-Asian think tanks, including the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) business advisory council for Northeast Asia, which includes the governments of China, Russia, Mongolia, North Korea and South Korea, serving as Vice-Chairman of their business advisory council, in addition to a main board directorship with the India-US Business Network based in Cincinnati and with the Gateway House Indian foreign policy think tank based in Mumbai. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Wong MNC Center in San Francisco.
Chris is a member of the Royal Overseas League and St. James Club in London, the Institute of Directors in Hong Kong, and a lifetime member of the Hanoi Press Club and Scott Polar Research Institute He also holds the title Baron of Coigach, the 19th in a line stretching back to 1511. In 2012, he commissioned a new piece of classical music encompassing Chinese, India and European themes to mark Dezan Shira & Associates twentieth anniversary. He is a regular contributor to numerous regional charities, ranging from education for orphaned children in China (Care for Children) wildlife protection in Mongolia (Snow Leopard Trust) and Sri Lanka and the preservation of ancient buildings and reconstruction of hospitals and orphanages in Tibet (Surmang Foundation). He regularly travels around our offices and the region and is based from his properties in Sri Lanka and Malta during the winter months and St. Petersburg and Tallinn in summer. He is a competitive sailor, a qualified Ocean skipper and competent horseman.
*Podcast intro music is from the song “The Queens Jig” by “Musicke & Mirth” from their album “Music for Two Lyra Viols”: http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are speaking with Chris Devonshire Ellis. |
| 0:11.6 | He is the founder of Desenshira and Associates, |
| 0:14.5 | a foreign direct investment practice which also publishes the Silk Road briefing. |
| 0:18.9 | He speaks numerous languages and has lived all over the world. |
| 0:22.1 | We will be talking about his vast experience and his book, China's new economic Silk Road, |
| 0:27.2 | the Great Eurasian Game and the String of Pearls. I have guests on from different parts of the |
| 0:32.4 | world with different life experiences to talk about the new Silk Road. In your book, which is |
| 0:37.3 | available on Amazon |
| 0:38.6 | Kindle and paperback, you describe China's intentions as threefold to secure and develop energy |
| 0:45.1 | supplies, to create and secure social environments and markets, and to develop the infrastructure. |
| 0:52.3 | You say it will affect 80% of the planet. |
| 0:55.7 | I'd like to try and get your unique insights into this Chinese behemoth. |
| 1:00.7 | Is it a jolly giant, a lurking dragon, or a paper tiger? |
| 1:04.5 | Where would you start in trying to explain your view of the New Silk Road? |
| 1:10.7 | Yeah, I have to say that the New Silk Road. |
| 1:18.0 | Yeah, I have to say that the Thelts and Road initiative has been one of the most, |
| 1:24.6 | has created a lot of partisan feeling in the international media. There are, there seem to be two camps, people that are very much for it, |
| 1:28.7 | and also people that see it as a threat. So it's very much a point of view perspective. |
| 1:37.5 | From my own point of view, having traveled extensively around the region, rather than just being an |
| 1:45.1 | armchair commentator, I see, I do not see it as a threat. There are challenges, but essentially |
| 1:53.7 | I think that the Chinese want to, want to, first of all, put in infrastructure and social intercourse into the, primarily the Eurasian |
| 2:08.2 | region for a number of factors. A lot of media has concentrated on trade, with the overall impression being that China is just using this to export cheap goods to Europe and to Southeast Asia and and elsewhere. |
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