About the Lecture:

The One Belt One Road (BRI) intended to promote economic development and exchanges between China and more than 60 countries, is gaining momentum. However, BRI planned US$ 4 trillion investment is not immune to a number of important risks that in many instances are new to Chinese companies operating abroad. The insurance and private security sectors are willing to bridge the gap. The contemporary role of private security companies with ‘Chinese characteristics’ is entirely different from the role played by private military companies that were employed during the two Iraqi conflicts and the Afghan stabilisation campaign. Nevertheless, Chinese state-owned enterprises that deploy PSCs still struggle with several perception gaps with regard to present security threats as well as how best to utilise security contractors. One oversight that must be addressed is that the BRI requires a wide range of security considerations along both the maritime and land routes.

About the Speaker:

Dr Alessandro Arduino is the co-director of the Security & Crisis Management program at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science (SASS-UNITO) and external associate at the Lau China Institute, King’s College London. Dr. Arduino’s two decades of experience in China encompasses security analysis and crisis management. His main research interests include China’s political economy, Sino-Central Asia relations, Sovereign Wealth Funds, Private Military/Security Companies, China’s security and foreign policy. He is the author of several books and has published papers and commentaries in various journals in Italian, English and Chinese languages. He has been appointed Knight of the Order of the Italian Star by the President of the Italian Republic.