As part of the University of Virginia's "Assessment of China's Belt and Road Initiative" project, we are honored to host Dawn Murphy, Associate Professor of National Security Strategy at the US National War College. Prof. Murphy specializes in Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics, US-China relations and international relations, and her research analyzes China’s interests and behavior as a rising global power towards the existing international order.

Murphy examines China’s relations with the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa in her book China’s Rise in the Global South: The Middle East, Africa, and Beijing’s Alternative World Order, the topic of her talk with us. Her work analyzes China’s foreign policy approach towards the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa regionally (e.g., political, economic, military, and foreign aid) and through detailed case studies of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF), the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the China-Middle East Issues Special Envoy, the China-Africa Issues Special Envoy, China’s Special Envoy for Syria, China’s naval base in Djibouti, and China’s Belt and Road initiative. The project is based on extensive field work conducted as a Visiting Scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China; a Visiting Research Fellow with the American University in Cairo, Egypt; a Visiting Researcher at Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Chinese Studies in South Africa; as well as research trips to Beijing, Washington, D.C., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and will be held Thursday, March 23, from 3:15 - 5:00 p.m. in New Cabell Hall 349. To join via concurrent livestream, please register here.