To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
After six years, how successful is China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? What myths can be debunked and what major geopolitical shifts are still to come? Jonathan Hillman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies will discuss the BRI’s activities across the Eurasian supercontinent and its maritime periphery.
Jonathan E. Hillman is a senior fellow with the CSIS Simon Chair in Political Economy and director of the Reconnecting Asia Project, one of the most extensive open-source databases tracking China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and other infrastructure projects across the Eurasian supercontinent. Hillman has testified before Congress, briefed government officials and Fortune 500 executives, and written on economics, national security, and foreign policy issues for the Financial Times, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other outlets. His book, The Emperor’s New Road, will be published by Yale University Press in 2020.
Prior to joining CSIS, Hillman served as a policy adviser at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where he contributed to the 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy and the President’s Trade Agenda and directed the research and writing process for essays, speeches, and other materials explaining U.S. trade and investment policy. He has also worked as a researcher at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Council on Foreign Relations, and in Kyrgyzstan as a Fulbright scholar. He is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Presidential Scholar, and Brown University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the Garrison Prize for best thesis in international relations.
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