BMET 22A47 - Decoding China's Vision of Global Governance

Since the beginning of the Xi Jinping era, China has regularly contributed to the debate on global governance. China's contributions have been either abstract or supported by concrete projects such as One Belt, One Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative, the three-faced notion of Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Cultural Initiative, and, more recently, the BRICS+.

This course will provide students with a broader and deeper understanding of the values, priorities, and visions underpinning these three frameworks, as well as their expected impact on the existing global governance.

All sessions will be pragmatic and research-oriented. For this reason, the whole course has been structured around three case studies corresponding to the three global governance frameworks China has endorsed so far.

For each case study, both Chinese and non-Chinese narratives related to the framework will be discussed in class. Then, students will be required to work in groups to better understand and nuance the Chinese perspective, one of the countries that might be listed as China's allies in a specific framework, as well as the reactions of the United States, Europe, and third countries.

Each of them will prove crucial to explain and understand both advantages and disadvantages associated with the three China-led initiatives as well as to test how realistic their success is and what kind of challenges Europe will have to face if China succeeds.

At the end of the course, the student is expected to :

1°) Better master pragmatic research methods to be adopted in sensitive and not well-documented research fields.

2°) Strengthen his/her knowledge of political, geopolitical, and strategic analysis.

3°) Familiarize with the importance of adopting a cautious attitude while framing medium and long-term strategic scenarios.

To validate the course, the student is expected to pass the following assignments (at least three grades):

1°) Group presentation number 1 - One Belt One Road

2°) Group presentation number 2 - Global Development/Security/Cultural Initiative

3°) Group presentation number 3 - BRICS+