China’s Hengtong Group—leading a consortium of telecom companies from Hong Kong, Pakistan, and East Africa—will soon complete installation of the Pakistan East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) cable. Spanning the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, this cable will connect the three most populous continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, or what Halford Mackinder described as the “World Island.” The cable aims to provide these previously under-serviced regions with the shortest latency between routes and high-quality Internet, but what are China’s aims with the project and what benefits will it bring to partners in South Asia and Africa? This roundtable will discuss the technical, economic, and geopolitical implications of this flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Speakers:

Motolani Agbebi

University teacher, Faculty of Management and Business, University of Tampere (Finland)

Tayyab Safdar

Post-Doctoral Researcher, East Asia Centre & Department of Politics, University of Virginia

Roxana Vatanparast

Affiliate, Center on Global Legal Transformation, Columbia Law School

Moderators:

James Gethyn Evans, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Nargis Kassenova, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, and the Center for African Studies at Harvard University.