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[Nihar/Daniel] and I affirm Resolved: The European Union should join the Belt and Road Initiative (also known as the BRI).In 2013, China launched its Belt and Road initiative, which the European Bank for Research and Development explains is China’s ambitious economic development program to connect Asia and Europe through land and sea networks, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth. With over 70 countries participating, the project provides over $1 trillion in investment.Contention 1 is Scientific Research Cooperation (It’s Big Brain Time)Ehsan Masood Nature 19 Xi and other Chinese leaders see science as a central element in building [relationships] with other countries and Bai Chunli, president of CAS, emphasized that point last year in the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS Bulletin). “Science, [making] technology and innovation forming] are the core driving force for the BRI development,” he wrote.In Sri Lanka, China is co-funding a centre focused on safe drinking water and supporting investigations into a kidney-disease crisis in the country’s rural population. In Pakistan, it is co-sponsoring a range of research centres that are studying topics from rice agriculture to artificial intelligence and railway engineering. In the heart of the European Union, a Chinese–Belgian science park provides homes for companies trying to expand trade in medical devices, solar power and other technologies. And in South America, China has partnered with Chile and Argentina on astronomical centres and has gained access to some of the best observatories in the world. In total, the scientific side of the BRI involves tens of thousands of researchers and students, and hundreds of universities. There are few regions of the developing world where China’s scientific outreach does not have a footprint.For the past six months, Nature has been travelling to countries participating in the BRI. From Beijing to Islamabad, Colombo to Nairobi to Lima, we are exploring in a series of five articles over the next two weeks how China is transforming the world of science. China’s universities — along with a vast network of CAS institutes — are fanning out across the globe. They are offering scientific assistance and signing collaborative agreements on a scale not seen since the United States and the former Soviet Union vied with each other to fund researchers in allied nations during the cold war. On 19 April, Bai announced that [In fact, the Chinese Academy of Sciences] has invest[ing] more than 1.8 billion yuan (almost US$268 million) in science and technology projects as part of the BRI.Science Cooperation has already been a massive success in AfricaRoussi 19 Nature has emerged as a major partner in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and that is paying dividends for science. So far, [after] 39 African countries and the African Union Commission have signed BRI cooperation agreements, with others expected to follow. Africa has emerged as one of the strongest supporters of the BRI, with most of the continent having joined the programme; and China has become the largest financier of African infrastructure, funding one in five projects. As in many other regions participating in the BRI, this has implications for science and education. China’s assistance is also reflected in education there, particularly in the sciences. China hosted nearly 62,000 African university and postgraduate students in 2016, second only to France at 103,000, according to the most recent figures available from the Chinese Ministry of Education and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Chinese government also [and] offered [over 8,000]8,470 scholarships to African students in 2015, says Rui Yang, associate dean of international education at the University of Hong Kong. China’s support for African postgraduate and postdoctoral students is unprecedented, says Mohamed Hassan, president of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy, and a Sudanese mathematician. “When it comes to training a new generation of African scholars, [the Chinese] are doing a marvellous job,” Hassan told Nature. “They are doing better than any other country for Africa.”Thus joining the BRI would increase the EU’s research partnerships with ChinaVan der Wende & Tijssen ’19 (Marijk van der Wende & Robert Tijssen, Jan 11 2019. natureINDEX “China's Belt and Road Initiative finds new research partners in Europe” Accessed 8.20.2019 CB19QLC)These new Sino–European science initiatives are bolstering research collaboration between emerging trade partners. An analysis of jointly authored research publications in the Web of Science database shows that China’s collaboration with researchers based in other countries has grown significantly since 2014. Worldwide, more than 36% of China’s research publications now also include an international co-author.Several countries have considerably strengthened their links with China in recent years. [for example] Latvia tops the list of 10 European countries, based on its compound annual growth in joint research publications with China since 2013. It has seen an increase of 62% in [joint] publications [with] in which at least one China [since it joined]-based researcher is mentioned as a co-author. According to a recent press release by China’s state press agency Xinhuanet, Latvia is not only a highly regarded partner in science, technology and innovation, but also a “logistics hub” for China in the Baltic. The Belt and Road Initiative seems to have had a profound impact on bilateral research partnerships between both countries.The impact is finding a cure.Van der Wende & Tijssen continues ’19 (Marijk van der Wende & Robert Tijssen, Jan 11 2019. natureINDEX “China's Belt and Road Initiative finds new research partners in Europe” Accessed 8.20.2019 CB19QLC)Chinese research cooperation activities seem to be targeting specific areas [including]. Most of the growth in China–Latvia bilateral co-publications are in the field of physics and materials science [and]. The same field, as well as cooperation in clinical medicine, is driving the high bilateral co-publication growth rates in the other top five European countries.Along with directly developing new medicines, this research spurs additional investment in research and development, or R&D Toole Rutgers University 07This paper examines the relationship between publicly financed biomedicalresearch, which is performed mainly by university and nonprofit research lab-oratories, and the investment behavior of private pharmaceutical firms. The main question in this paper is whether public basic and clinical research complement private R&D investment by the pharmaceutical industry. An increase in industry investment in response to public research, perhaps reflecting the genesis of new projects or the further development of embryonic ideas, is strong evidence sup-porting a complementary relationship. The analysis found that both public basic research and public clinical research stimulated additional private pharmaceutical R&D.This investment is critical to combat rare diseasesPolicyCures 2019 SMEs[EU biotech companies] rely on external investment to make it viable for them to conduct PRND [poverty related and rare diseases] R&D. But every euro invested by the EU in European SMEs for PRND R&D leverages an additional €4.33 in investment from these SMEs, foreign governments and philanthropic organisationsThe organisations are collaborating with other academic institutes as well as with industry and PDPs, contributing to Europe’s scientific excellence. Collectively, European organisations are involved in 45% of the current pipeline of neglected disease [research] products, most of which are being worked on in collaborations between multiple organisations. Shin of Pharma Intelligence in 2017 findswhile individual rare diseases may only affect a small pool of patients, rare disease patients as a whole are quite numerous at an estimated 350 million people worldwide. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that about half of these patients are children, 30% of whom will not live to see their fifth birthdayDSW 2016 neglected diseasesPoverty-related and neglected diseases (PRNDs) are infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the world’s poorest populations [where]. there is a dire lack of vaccines [and], diagnostics, drugs and other products that can address these diseases and lessen the burden.This investment decreases long run healthcare costsParanicas HINJ 14Impressively, for every dollar spent on innovative medicines, total healthcare spending is reduced by $7.20 [by reducing the need for doctor visits, hospitalizations, and expensive surgeries down the road] Certainly, these medicines, therapies, medical technologies, devices and diagnostic tools keep people healthier. They limit the need for frequent visits to the doctor. They help to avoid costly hospital stays. They help patients avoid expensive surgeries.Contention 2 is increasing global tradeThrough the BRI, China is working on fixing border delays, a major roadblock to trade between BRI nations. participating in the Belt and Road Initiative face a major challenge in facilitating trade. While large investments in trade-related infrastructure capture global headlines, transaction costs generated by inefficient border clearances and trade-related regulatory requirements are one of the major policy risks facing the BRI. A new World Bank Group study assesses the scale of these trade facilitation challenges. Looking specifically at the six BRI land corridors, the research shows that most of these trade corridors perform below global averages. For instance: Times to comply with regulatory and border requirements for import are higher than the global average on all corridors except the New Eurasian corridor, and times to export are higher than the global average on all corridors except the New Eurasian and China-Pakistan corridors; Although it is the global norm for import clearance to take longer than export clearance, the gap between them is higher than the global average along the BRI corridors, suggesting a disproportionate burden for traders importing to BRI countries; Customs and border management agency performance is better than the global average on two of the six corridors; and On trade facilitation benchmarks, including Doing Business and the Logistics Performance Index, only two of the six land corridors rank in the top half of countries globally; and three of the six corridors rank below the global average in all benchmarks covered in our review.increasing the cost of trading.At the same time, China is shifting away from large-scale infrastructure development Standish Oct 2019 Atlantic (paraphrased) Failures in Large-scale BRI infrastructure projects in Eurasia like the Khorgos Railroad through Kazakhstan have resulted in projects not being as profitable as China expected, causing Xi Jinping to consider scaling down or canceling these projects.Yet even these touted successes point to future problems for the project. Rail transport is still only a small percentage of global trade; sea and air routes, which are cheaper and faster, respectively, form the bulk of goods moved between China and Europe. The land route has also been criticized for waste and fraud. Many of the cargo containers returning by rail from Europe to China through Kazakhstan are empty, officials admit, due to a trade imbalance, but the problem may run even deeper. The Chinese government provides significant subsidies to encourage use of the rail links, and a recent report by the Chinese Business Journal found that many exporters transported empty containers from China to Europe just to receive those subsidies. China Railway, the government operator of the rail line, admitted to the state-run Global Times that the problem existed, but said that it has been eradicated. Not only does the episode illustrate the commercial limits of large-scale shipping by train, but it calls into question the viability of the Khorgos project. These concerns may be part of a broader pattern. At the second annual Belt and Road Forum, in April, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping signaled that his government would move to tighten oversight of the opaque network of infrastructure projects that makes up BRI and discussed taking on more high-quality and sustainable deals, saying that Beijing had “zero tolerance” for corruption. This came on the heels of several instances that have sullied the initiative’s brand. The $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has been scaled back amid Pakistan’s increasing debt problems, while [for example], a major port deal in Myanmar was slimmed down from roughly $7 billion to $1.3 billion. A port in Sri Lanka garnered global headlines after the government couldn’t repay its loans and granted a state-owned Chinese company a 99-year lease on the port as a form of debt relief. Elsewhere, projects have been tarnished by corruption: The new Malaysian government renegotiated a major rail project at a significantly reduced cost and canceled $3 billion worth of plans to build new pipelines following a graft scandal. The Maldives is seeking debt forgiveness following corruption allegations connected to Belt and Road projects green-lit by its previous government.Now, China’s new BRI border reforms offer a new solution for Europe.Ramasamy, B., & Yeung, M. C. (2019). China's one belt one road initiative: The impact of trade facilitation versus physical infrastructure on exports. The World Economy, 42(6), 1673-1694. notes survey conducted by the OECD/WTO in ten regional economic communities and transport corridors and 62 developing countries found border procedures and transport infrastructure to be [are] among the most important source of trade costs for exports (OECD/WTO, 2015). Improvements in border efficiency not only improve exports unilaterally, but also enhance the effectiveness of the hard infrastructures as well. Yadav (2014) in a study of trade facilitation and parts and components trade also pointed to the greater effectiveness of reducing border and customs‐related barriers in promoting exports. Amin and Haidar (2014) found that reducing the number of documents for export and import clearance to promote trade is particularly important for small economies. Compared to China, most other countries involved in OBOR are small, with parts and components trade featuring prominently in their trade relations. Thus, improving border administration should be considered a priority of the OBOR project. However, these improvements are within the policy space of individual countries. Reducing barriers to trade, whether removing redundant documents, or controlling unsolicited payment by customs officials, or even promoting paperless systems in customs clearance, requires the political will of individual governments. If these measures are introduced, physical connectivity further enhances trade. Thus, if [the BRI]OBOR is to meet its objective of increasing economic relationship among countries in the region, China will need to require countries along the corridors to make significant improvements in its border administration [for example by eliminating redundant documents and switching to paperless systems], as a precondition to investing in the hard infrastructure. The Chinese government could nudge the improvements in the border administration of individual countries, for instance, by promoting [regional trade agreements or] RTAs along the various corridors as these agreements could include [with] trade facilitation clauses. More recently concluded RTAs have various features of trade facilitation, ranging from the exchange of customs‐related information among member countries to a single window to facilitate paperless approval systems (Neufeld, 2014). As long as the features of the trade facilitation measures are non‐discriminatory against non‐members (Hamanaka, Tafgar, & Lazaro, 2010), the RTAs could also facilitate greater trade both within and among the corridors of the OBOR. The membership of China in the RTAs, particularly with the CA/WA, BCIM, CMR and NELB corridors, could be a further impetus towards more vibrant RTAs in the region. In this regard, the China‐ASEAN FTA is a good model to emulateThe One Brief Magazine confirms that Nearly 70 countries comprise the BRI, representing regions such as East Africa, Europe and Asia. China is reportedly spending $150 billion per year in the countries that have signed up for the plan. The recent global growth of trade has led to the expansion of regional trade agreements (RTAs), which are reciprocal in nature and designed to protect two or more partners. RTAs are authorized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and subject to clearly defined rules. The number of RTAs has jumped from 124 in 1991 to more than 400 today. [and] It’s almost certain that the BRI will lead to even more of these agreements. As such, the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has argued that RTAs provide stronger trade agreements between countries beyond their designated regions, which in turn increas[ing] es access to emerging markets.Bala Ramasamy 17, Matthew Yeung, Chorthip Utoktham and Yann Duval (2017), “Trade and trade facilitation along the Belt and Road Initiative corridors”, ARTNeT Working Paper Series, No. 172, November 2017, Bangkok, ESCAP. explainsA one-percent increase in the efficiency of border administration and transport infrastructure will increase exports by 1.5 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively. A one percent improvement in the quality of ICT on the other hand can increase exports by 1.4 percent. Clearly, among the three enablers in the model, improvements in the efficiency of border administration have the largest impact on exports, ceteris paribus.Allowing more goods to be bought and sold.The benefits of this boom in trade go global why if the EU joins the Belt and Road Initiative,Xu of HKUx-xxxx, "China’S Belt And Road: Can Europe Expect Trade Gains?," Hkust Thought Leadership Briefs No. 14, Asia region then becomes the biggest winner, followed by non-EU European countries which also benefit from the elimination of trade tariffs. If we consider countries one by one, the top winners [will be] Middle Eastern and Central and East Asian countries– whose trade increases by more than 15%. This compares favorably with trade gains stemming from the reduction of transport costs – previously estimated for this group of economies to be 3%.Robert Koopman, 3-1-2019, "Why poverty reduction rests on trade," World Economic Forum, concludesOpen trade is particularly beneficial to the poor, because it reduces the cost of what they buy and raises the price of what they sell. As new research from the World Bank and the World Trade Organization makes clear, farmers and manufacturing workers earn more income when their products can reach overseas markets. With today’s trade tensions, it is easy to lose sight of the progress the world has made over the past few decades of economic integration. Since 1990, more than one billion people have lifted themselves out of poverty, owing to growth that was underpinned by trade. study, by a team of World Bank Group economists led by Michele Ruta, found that complementary policy reforms will be essential for countries to unlock BRI-related gains. Real income for BRI economies could be two to four times larger if trade facilitation is improved and trade restrictions are reduced. In addition, stronger labor-mobility and adjustment policies would ensure that gains are more equally shared.0Thus we affirm.FrontlineFL: C1: R&DFIND MORE RESPONSESFL: Nature article says potential bad things could happenYeah there are risks but we address them (respond as a normal arg)The article itself says that China is working to fix them alreadyFL: Coop with EU already (2017 conference, etc.)Only the 15 countries that have joined ie. latvia Nature- Most existing cooperation they are talking about falls under the BRI (so future coop)Still not enough - 350 million ppl still need cures for rare diseasesFL: Always will be research/other countries have researchNo biotech research between EU and China now (or not much)It’s not cooperative research which is more productive (just analytic the warrant why)EU does 45% of neglected diseases research (that’s policycures)Still not enough clearly since 350 mil ppl still need a cure - more funding is neededFL: EU needs private biotech investmentChina funding the research which is the most risky part attracts more private investment (that’s toole in case)FL: EU doesn’t trust ChinaThey trust coop research - china has a good history in Africa and LatviaFL: Poor can’t afford drugs developedWSJ and Health Affairs - price cuts in developing countries, they pay as low as 27% of the price in industrialized countriesReuters 17 - Generics will be madeThey can develop cheaper versions of existing drugsFL: Surveillance/AI BadChina and the EU have to agree to these projects - EU won’t do itThe EU’s blocked things like 5G that they don’t trust/likeJoint research is on materials science and medicineHart says they reform chinese project standards to follow EU requirementsJust delink itFL: Mergers decrease inno[Ringel 2017] Mergers increase innovationFresh look at investment projects means objective assessment of inno projects that are maintained even though there is little viabilityDepth of information access also increases with mergers and improves innoEvidence also indicts their study. M&A bad studies use ineffective measurements like number of patents or amount of $ spent on R&D. The real measurement should be quality medicines.It ultimately concludes that Post merger R&D productivity is 1.83 times the productivity beforeFischer Forbes 15- M&A allows clinical medicines to get from labs to distribution channels because small businesses can’t distributeCards for C1 frontlinesDelink: Developing countries can import generic drugs instead {NO}Reuters 2017,Poor countries are allowed to import generic medicines, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Roberto Azevedo told Reuters on Monday, after the required two-thirds of members agreed a deal that has taken more than a decade to finalise. The amendment to the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement gives the world’s most vulnerable people [developing countries] access to [generic] drugs for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, Azevedo said later in a statement. Michelle Mello, June 2018, perplexing moral problem is that tradeoffs may exist between improving the affordability of prescription drugs for Americans and maintaining their affordability to patients in other countries. 53 Branded drug prices in the United States are generally higher than in other countries because most foreign governments have adopted stronger mechanisms than the United States for controlling prices - for example, more consolidated price negotiations or direct price Controls. Because we pay so much, pharmaceutical companies may be more willing or able to grant price concessions elsewhere, including outright donation of critical medications to low- income countries. Actions we take to restrict price, therefore, could have unintended, but real, effects on drug affordability in less wealthy countries. ...However, because the market for prescription drugs is global but is propped up by high prices in the United States, tamping down drug prices has a zero-sum-game quality that is unique. Squeezing one part of the drug-price balloon may cause it to bulge out in other areas drugs, such as for HIV and hepatitis, cost less in certain overseas markets because companies cut prices for poor countries. 2011For patented drugs, middle-income countries pay on average 52 percent of what industrialized countries pay, while developing countries pay 27 percent of the prices charged in industrialized countries. For drugs that are no longer patented, middle-income countries pay 71 percent and developing countries 41 percent of what industrialized countries pay, while for products on the World Health Organization’s list of essential drugs, the figures are 28 percent and 6 percent. Thus, the average prices charged in developing countries for all three categories of drugs are much lower than those charged elsewhere.Ringel 2017 The average R&D productivity observed during post-merger windows is 1.83 times the average R&D productivity observed in the comparison non-merger years.Fresh lookDepth of infoIndictConclusionFischer 15Many believe quality standards were raised in the last decade, and everyone agrees that new markets were created. Despite the introduction of many new legal and regulatory hurdles, pharma was quite good at adaptation. However, when it comes time to leave the lab and commercialize a product, Big Pharma’s big resources make a big difference, and small companies know this. If nimble biotech companies assume the high risk of research and early clinical development (often in lean start-up models) then Big Pharma can see what experiments could one day become viable products before investing in them. Take, for example, Gilead’s 2011 $11 billion gamble on Pharmasset that had a late-phase-clinical prospect for the treatment of hepatitis C. That late-phase prospect is now known as Sovaldi.FL: C2: TradeFL: EU trade/investment now/Connectivity strategy Xu Hererro - Still bottlenecks now - In general more trade is goodMost existing EU investment is internal - doesnt link EU to Asia - BRI is much larger&globalAT Connectivity Strategy:Elmer SCMP 19 - EU willing to join china’s BRI if china meets their requirementsFL: 173 projects/greer of Foreign PolicyMultiple issues with how Greet interprets the underlying CSIS/Hillman study that is cited - the study only looks at 6 narrow corridors and excludes most of Europe and Africa - the card itself says that projects outside of the regions they define are also part of the BRIFL: Debt TrapsMeyer of Wharton 19- EU can negotiate better deals with China because they have a lot to offer and China really wants their biz EU can turn down projectsRWR - transparent, no problems 86% of the time (find the card)China loses money when the project fails SCMP says they reformed this aprilVOA News 18- Only 2% of Africa’s debt is from China, most from western institutionsLi of Bloomberg 19- China doesn’t invest anymore in places that can’t pay back due to reformsZhou SCMP 19- China forgives debt and has done so for $50 billion, only in 2 instances has debt diplomacy happened. FL: Climate Change (Also see environment turns in Danny Doc)Arie of FT 2019- to stop CC, we need to triple renewable construction overnight and sustain it for decades. Arie concludes it’s too late for green tech to save us. Brown of CCN 2016- World’s leading climate scientists concur 1.5C brightline inevitable due to past inaction, the full extent of 2016 emissions are only felt in 2030. Kelly of Princeton 13- Even if emissions go to 0 overnight, the Earth will still warm for hundreds of years due to existing carbon. FL: EmissionsDudley of Forbes 2019- Renewables will be consistently cheaper than fossil fuel by 2020 without subsidies, China has financial incentive to implement theseHanada of the Asian Review 2019- China made renewables a centerpiece of its modernization plan and the BRI gives their companies somewhere to offload it. Chinese solar grew 700x in the last decade. There’s both an economic and political incentive(See ev in Danny Doc)FL: Crowding outUse the Meyer of UPenn 19 negotiations evidenceThat’s because the EU would never willingly implement a policy that destroys their own industries. China needs the EU because they have something to offer, not the other way around. FL: DumpingEU Business 2017- Eu has tons of anti-dumping measures in place against China already. They’ve made it a core focus for years, there’s no way they vanish when joining the BRI.Use the Meyer of UPenn 19 negotiations evidenceCheck kommers ev belowFL: Bad InfrastructureLi of The Business of Fashion 19- China is enacting massive reforms to stop corruption and setting more rules. Less corruption means more oversight and higher quality infrastructure. This is why Hao of the Telegraph 19 says transparency has increased in companies and bribes have been harshly punished, improving cooperation with laws. FL: Not Profitable Li of The Business of Fashion 19- China is enacting massive reforms to stop corruption and setting more rules. Less corruption means more oversight and higher quality infrastructure. EU is more developed, won’t get roped into bad investments easily and has higher scrutiny China takes a loss FL: trade agreements in squo[Kohl 1/19] China doesn’t have any trade agreement (other than normal WTO shit) with EU]FL: Build ActCheck danny doc AT Long Trade TimesThey say it bri has long border control times - thats comparing to g7 nations (7 countries!) which already have developed infra networks- relatively it still decreaseAT InequalityInequality - nihar covers this really well - 1. Infra Connect rural areas to cities, no reason why it would hurt them 2. Nonsensical - if half the room becomes wealthier inequality can increase but nobody becomes poorer- Pulling some ppl out of poverty better than helping nobodyAT EpidemicsTURN: Chen - chinese health silk road - med infra, training, health programs, emergency health - eliminate tb and 17 diseases - impact to livesNEED MORE AT Invasive SpeciesInvasive species - can just take other routes??Gren ev is not specific to the BRIChina has the capability to solve (and probably an incentive as well since it hurts their economy) Cell Press 19 - Based on the results, Li's team urgently recommends "the initiation of a project targeting early prevention, strict surveillance, rapid response, and effective control of alien species in BRI countries to ensure that this development is sustainable."Based on the findings, the researchers call for stricter screening for alien wildlife, including imported commodities, vehicles, and equipment through airports and seaports and along other transportation corridors. Noting limited resources in many BRI countries, they suggest the establishment of a special fund to support the operation of biosecurity measures.AT Transparency/SOESOE - drop bond response- forces china to follow EU transparency policies - 2 reasons why projects get better - turn this back to the aff a) its literally EU law that china has to follow b) public scrutiny checks back - wins us an extra link into our c1 impact recent years, the number of regional trade agreements has proliferated. The great majority, about 90 %, of the regional trade agreements allow member countries to use anti-dumping measures against one another. There are only 11 regional trade agreements that have eliminated the use of anti-dumping measures. Due to the fact that about 75 % of all regional trade agreements include provisions on com- petition rules, it may be possible to replace anti-dumping measures with competition rules if there is emphasis placed on this during the trade negotiations. The elimination of anti-dumping meas- ures in regional trade agreements is also in line with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) provisions. The European Union (EU) is probably the best example of a regional integration scheme that has, in practice, replaced the use of anti-dumping measures between the member states with common competition rules and a common competition authority to enforce these rules. In the case of the EU, the harmonisation of other policy areas has also contributed to the possibility to eliminate the use of anti-dumping measures between the member states following the enlarge- ment. However, in its regional trade agreements with third countries, the EU maintains the right to use anti-dumping measures, despite provisions on competition being included in most agree- ments. This report argues that the inclusion of competition rules and other forms of policy harmonisa- tion between member countries is a possible substitute for the use of anti-dumping measures in regional trade agreements. The possibility of replacing anti-dumping measures with competition rules and other relevant harmonisation provisions should be considered by the EU and other countries in future regional trade agreements. Regional trade agreements could, for example, establish a common competition authority in order to render the provisions on com- petition meaningful. If successful, the replacement of anti-dumping measures with competition rules in regional trade agreements could, ultimately, be seen as a stepping stone and an example to follow in multilateral trade negotiations. ‘Unfair competition’ should be addressed by efficient competition rules rather than the use of anti-dumping measures.Meyer 2019 UPennBut China could face tough negotiations elsewhere in Europe, Meyer predicted. “European countries, unlike Italy, are not going to go singly to China,” he said. “They will go as a group, probably led by Germany, and again try to negotiate volume discounts. At the end of the day there’s the possibility that the winners of this will be the host countries and not China. Let’s see the terms of trade, then we’ll know.” Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have already formed their own trilateral investment initiative to help meet infrastructure needs in the Indo-Pacific.VOA News 18 (NA)Yet Chinese loans make up just a small portion of Africa’s debt, W. Gyude Moore, a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, told VOA. Moore is Liberia’s former minister of public works and focuses on infrastructure financing in Africa. He put the continent’s total debt burden at about $6 trillion, most of which is owed to organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Paris Club of mostly Western creditor countries. He said Chinese loans make up just two percent of all Africa debt. Li Bloomberg 2019Signs of a more cautious approach have emerged -- at least around its debt exposure. China has withheld some $4.9 billion in new loans for a major rail project it had been building in eastern Africa. The line was supposed to run from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa to Uganda and beyond, but only the stretch from the coast to Nairobi is done. China balked at funding the extension amid concerns that Kenya was at risk of debt distress. Revenue from the railway is supposed to repay the initial $3.6 billion loan, but critics say it won’t turn a profit for a long time. RWR Advisory Group, a Washington-based consulting firm, reported that the Export Import Bank of China backed out of providing financing for a giant solar project due to the Zimbabwean government’s legacy debts.Zhou SCMP 19 China is inclined to renegotiate or write off debts incurred by other countries for its belt and road infrastructure projects and only rarely seizes assets, a study by a New York consultancy has found. The Rhodium Group’s research looked at 40 cases of external debt renegotiation between 2007 and this year and found there was only one confirmed case of asset seizure – in Sri Lanka. The conclusions, based on the studies of Chinese debt renegotiations with 24 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, challenge claims that the Belt and Road Initiative will leave countries with debts they cannot repay and force them to hand over assets or natural resources to Beijing. The report concluded that Beijing had renegotiated about US$50 billion of loans and in most cases, debts had either been written off or payment was deferred. Chinese-funded infrastructure projects hardly ever end with assets being seized. Photo: Xinhua Chinese-funded infrastructure projects hardly ever end with assets being seized. Photo: Xinhua Share: One example it gave was Cuba, which had US$2.8 billion in debts written off in 2010, while last week Ethiopia announced that Beijing had forgiven interest owed on belt and road loans. The publication of the research on Monday followed the end of the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Saturday, where Chinese President Xi Jinping attempted to allay growing international complaints that the plan was a “predatory debt trap” and promised to promote high financial and environmental standards under the initiative.Arie of FT 19Yet pessimism comes from the fact that all of this may not be enough. In our research at UBS, we estimate that to avoid a dangerous level of global warming, the world would need to commission an asset the size of New Jersey’s Ocean Wind every day for the next 30 years, without missing a day. Or put another way: we need to triple wind and solar construction overnight and sustain that new growth rate for decades, with no room for setbacks. The hard truth is that we are not on track for that. Nor are we close to an overnight technical solution to the many other challenges of the energy transition that must be solved before we can develop a 100 per cent clean energy system. Of course, these realities do not stop us from telling ourselves fairy tales. The first one is that energy efficiency will save the day. The facts show just the opposite: over 50 years since the oil price crises of the 1970s, we have seen rising energy efficiency in almost all walks of life, yet in the same time period energy demand and carbon emissions have tripled. As the Victorian economist WS Jevons understood already in 1865, the more efficient you become in your use of a fossil fuel, the more valuable that fossil fuel becomes to you, and the more of it you will consume.Brown of CCN 16A rise in world temperatures of 1.5C degrees can no longer be avoided, according to the world’s leading climate scientists, who say that the majority of people have yet to wake up to the stark realities and dangers of climate change.Large numbers of people have been misled into believing that economic growth can only be achieved by burning coal, gas and oil. And despite overwhelming scientific evidence, pressure from sectors benefiting from the use of fossil fuels has halted climate action.The calculation that the rise to 1.5C can no longer be avoided is based on the scientific evidence of the time lag between carbon dioxide being emitted by man into the atmosphere and the resultant heating up. The full effects of the greenhouse gases emitted in 2016 will only be felt in 2030.Kelly of Princeton 2013Even if carbon dioxide emissions came to a sudden halt, the carbon dioxide already in Earth’s atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to Princeton University-led research published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study suggests that it might take a lot less carbon than previously thought to reach the global temperature scientists deem unsafe.Dudley 19 of ForbesAll this [Recent figures] suggests IRENA was on the right track when it predicted early last year that renewable energy should be consistently cheaper than traditional fossil fuels by 2020.[..]IRENA says these trends are likely to continue over the next decade, particularly for solar and wind power technologies. According to the organisation's database, over 75% of the onshore wind and 80% of the solar PV capacity [power] due to be commissioned next year will produce power at lower prices than the cheapest new coal, oil or natural gas [fossil fuel] options. “Crucially, they are set to do so [even] without financial assistance,” it noted.Hanada 19 of Asian ReviewChina's wind power capacity soared 22-fold and solar nearly 700-fold in the decade through 2018, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA. This was the main driver behind global wind capacity quintupling and solar surging 33-fold over the same period. China accounted for about 30% of the world's renewables last year, with the U.S. a distant second at 10%. Renewables form a centerpiece of Chinese President Xi Jinping's "Made in China 2025" industrial modernization plan that seeks to make Beijing the world leader in the high-tech sector. Since meeting the nation's growing energy needs with fossil fuels would exacerbate an already serious air pollution problem, the government aims to increase the total share of solar and wind in the overall power mix to nearly 30% in 2030 from less than 10% last year.The Belt and Road infrastructure initiative has helped power China's renewables sector as well, giving businesses opportunities to export clean-energy technology and take on large-scale electricity projects in emerging countries.Li of Business of Fashion 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping’s grand Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is getting a makeover to tone down government rhetoric and tighten oversight, after allegations of corruption and a lack of sustainability dogged some of its highest-profile projects. Beijing is taking a range of steps to exert more control over the programme, officials and participants said, including a more muted publicity drive, clearer rules for state-owned-enterprises, restricting use of the BRI brand, and building overseas auditing and anti-corruption mechanisms. It’s also stepping up efforts to get developed nations to join in to spread the risk of building projects in poorer nations and to counter allegations that BRI is just an attempt to build China’s political influence.China’s Foreign Ministry referred questions for comment to the National Development and Reform Commission. The State Council Information Office and NDRC didn’t reply to faxes seeking for comment about the Belt and Road Initiative.Hao of the Telegraph 2019Chinese-invested enterprises, as active practitioners of transparency, have complied with local laws and rules and brought tangible gains to various parties, which not only shows the strong attraction and influence of the Belt and Road Initiative but also highlights China’s improved image in the international community. However, a few Chinese-invested enterprises and their staff have crossed a red line and engaged in corrupt practices, taking the path to self-destruction. While the actions of such enterprises and their staff are condemnable, there is no justification in tarring all Chinese enterprises involved in Belt and Road projects with the same brush. As such, the think tanks and scholars in other countries that overgeneralize the issue and accuse the Belt and Road Initiative of spreading corruption do so out of ill will. The fact is that the initiative is a road to clean governance. KohlWhile China already participates in trade agreements with countries in southern Asia, it does not yet have any trade agreements beyond its WTO commitments with respect to Kazakhstan, Russia or the European Union. Figure 2 provides an overview of the results when the PRC were to invest in distance-decreasing infrastructure improvements to facilitate trade with Russia and the EU.14 For ease of exposition, we will discuss the EU average, Russia and China, while full country-level information for trade and welfare is provided in Tables A2 and A3, respectively.CSIS Hillman BRI’s political economy within China drives its opportunistic expansion beyond China. Without specific criteria for what qualifies as a BRI project, the initiative has grown to encompass an endless list of unrelated activities. Chinese officials have not only allowed this expansion but actively participate in it. In official statements, the BRI has expanded since it was announced to include the Arctic, cyberspace, and even outer space. As the list of functions and geographies grows, more interest groups enter the battle for BRI spoils. Without more rigorous oversight by Chinese officials, there is no reason to expect this competition to converge upon the BRI’s six economic corridors. If anything, the opposite is true. In a larger arena, geographic priorities will be more difficult to pursue.After dropping projects without sufficient information, the analysis included 173 Chinese-funded infrastructure projects initiated between 2013 and 2017 across 45 countries on the Eurasian supercontinent. Western Europe was omitted from the analysis because its transport networks are already developed, and geographically, the region acts as an origin and destination rather than an intermediary linkage.Keegan Elmer, 4-1-2019, "EU’s connectivity plan ‘more sustainable’ than Beijing’s belt and road," South China Morning Post, ’ strategy focuses on ‘sustainable financing, avoiding debt traps, environmental impact’, European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic says EU keen to boost cooperation with China but Beijing must improve the transparency of its trade and infrastructure plan, he says He said he told Li that Europe was happy to boost trade with China – currently worth about €1.6 billion (US$1.78 billion) a day – and cooperation on the belt and road, as long as Beijing dealt with the concerns of European businesses.Meyer 2019 UPennBut China could face tough negotiations elsewhere in Europe, Meyer predicted. “European countries, unlike Italy, are not going to go singly to China,” he said. “They will go as a group, probably led by Germany, and again try to negotiate volume discounts. At the end of the day there’s the possibility that the winners of this will be the host countries and not China. Let’s see the terms of trade, then we’ll know.” Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have already formed their own trilateral investment initiative to help meet infrastructure needs in the Indo-Pacific.VOA News 18 (NA)Yet Chinese loans make up just a small portion of Africa’s debt, W. Gyude Moore, a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, told VOA. Moore is Liberia’s former minister of public works and focuses on infrastructure financing in Africa. He put the continent’s total debt burden at about $6 trillion, most of which is owed to organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Paris Club of mostly Western creditor countries. He said Chinese loans make up just two percent of all Africa debt. Li Bloomberg 2019Signs of a more cautious approach have emerged -- at least around its debt exposure. China has withheld some $4.9 billion in new loans for a major rail project it had been building in eastern Africa. The line was supposed to run from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa to Uganda and beyond, but only the stretch from the coast to Nairobi is done. China balked at funding the extension amid concerns that Kenya was at risk of debt distress. Revenue from the railway is supposed to repay the initial $3.6 billion loan, but critics say it won’t turn a profit for a long time. RWR Advisory Group, a Washington-based consulting firm, reported that the Export Import Bank of China backed out of providing financing for a giant solar project due to the Zimbabwean government’s legacy debts.Zhou SCMP 19 China is inclined to renegotiate or write off debts incurred by other countries for its belt and road infrastructure projects and only rarely seizes assets, a study by a New York consultancy has found. The Rhodium Group’s research looked at 40 cases of external debt renegotiation between 2007 and this year and found there was only one confirmed case of asset seizure – in Sri Lanka. The conclusions, based on the studies of Chinese debt renegotiations with 24 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, challenge claims that the Belt and Road Initiative will leave countries with debts they cannot repay and force them to hand over assets or natural resources to Beijing. The report concluded that Beijing had renegotiated about US$50 billion of loans and in most cases, debts had either been written off or payment was deferred. Chinese-funded infrastructure projects hardly ever end with assets being seized. Photo: Xinhua Chinese-funded infrastructure projects hardly ever end with assets being seized. Photo: Xinhua Share: One example it gave was Cuba, which had US$2.8 billion in debts written off in 2010, while last week Ethiopia announced that Beijing had forgiven interest owed on belt and road loans. The publication of the research on Monday followed the end of the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Saturday, where Chinese President Xi Jinping attempted to allay growing international complaints that the plan was a “predatory debt trap” and promised to promote high financial and environmental standards under the initiative.Arie of FT 19Yet pessimism comes from the fact that all of this may not be enough. In our research at UBS, we estimate that to avoid a dangerous level of global warming, the world would need to commission an asset the size of New Jersey’s Ocean Wind every day for the next 30 years, without missing a day. Or put another way: we need to triple wind and solar construction overnight and sustain that new growth rate for decades, with no room for setbacks. The hard truth is that we are not on track for that. Nor are we close to an overnight technical solution to the many other challenges of the energy transition that must be solved before we can develop a 100 per cent clean energy system. Of course, these realities do not stop us from telling ourselves fairy tales. The first one is that energy efficiency will save the day. The facts show just the opposite: over 50 years since the oil price crises of the 1970s, we have seen rising energy efficiency in almost all walks of life, yet in the same time period energy demand and carbon emissions have tripled. As the Victorian economist WS Jevons understood already in 1865, the more efficient you become in your use of a fossil fuel, the more valuable that fossil fuel becomes to you, and the more of it you will consume.Brown of CCN 16A rise in world temperatures of 1.5C degrees can no longer be avoided, according to the world’s leading climate scientists, who say that the majority of people have yet to wake up to the stark realities and dangers of climate change.Large numbers of people have been misled into believing that economic growth can only be achieved by burning coal, gas and oil. And despite overwhelming scientific evidence, pressure from sectors benefiting from the use of fossil fuels has halted climate action.The calculation that the rise to 1.5C can no longer be avoided is based on the scientific evidence of the time lag between carbon dioxide being emitted by man into the atmosphere and the resultant heating up. The full effects of the greenhouse gases emitted in 2016 will only be felt in 2030.Kelly of Princeton 2013Even if carbon dioxide emissions came to a sudden halt, the carbon dioxide already in Earth’s atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to Princeton University-led research published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study suggests that it might take a lot less carbon than previously thought to reach the global temperature scientists deem unsafe.Dudley 19 of ForbesAll this [Recent figures] suggests IRENA was on the right track when it predicted early last year that renewable energy should be consistently cheaper than traditional fossil fuels by 2020.[..]IRENA says these trends are likely to continue over the next decade, particularly for solar and wind power technologies. According to the organisation's database, over 75% of the onshore wind and 80% of the solar PV capacity [power] due to be commissioned next year will produce power at lower prices than the cheapest new coal, oil or natural gas [fossil fuel] options. “Crucially, they are set to do so [even] without financial assistance,” it noted.Hanada 19 of Asian ReviewChina's wind power capacity soared 22-fold and solar nearly 700-fold in the decade through 2018, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA. This was the main driver behind global wind capacity quintupling and solar surging 33-fold over the same period. China accounted for about 30% of the world's renewables last year, with the U.S. a distant second at 10%. Renewables form a centerpiece of Chinese President Xi Jinping's "Made in China 2025" industrial modernization plan that seeks to make Beijing the world leader in the high-tech sector. Since meeting the nation's growing energy needs with fossil fuels would exacerbate an already serious air pollution problem, the government aims to increase the total share of solar and wind in the overall power mix to nearly 30% in 2030 from less than 10% last year.The Belt and Road infrastructure initiative has helped power China's renewables sector as well, giving businesses opportunities to export clean-energy technology and take on large-scale electricity projects in emerging countries.Li of Business of Fashion 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping’s grand Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is getting a makeover to tone down government rhetoric and tighten oversight, after allegations of corruption and a lack of sustainability dogged some of its highest-profile projects. Beijing is taking a range of steps to exert more control over the programme, officials and participants said, including a more muted publicity drive, clearer rules for state-owned-enterprises, restricting use of the BRI brand, and building overseas auditing and anti-corruption mechanisms. It’s also stepping up efforts to get developed nations to join in to spread the risk of building projects in poorer nations and to counter allegations that BRI is just an attempt to build China’s political influence.China’s Foreign Ministry referred questions for comment to the National Development and Reform Commission. The State Council Information Office and NDRC didn’t reply to faxes seeking for comment about the Belt and Road Initiative.Hao of the Telegraph 2019Chinese-invested enterprises, as active practitioners of transparency, have complied with local laws and rules and brought tangible gains to various parties, which not only shows the strong attraction and influence of the Belt and Road Initiative but also highlights China’s improved image in the international community. However, a few Chinese-invested enterprises and their staff have crossed a red line and engaged in corrupt practices, taking the path to self-destruction. While the actions of such enterprises and their staff are condemnable, there is no justification in tarring all Chinese enterprises involved in Belt and Road projects with the same brush. As such, the think tanks and scholars in other countries that overgeneralize the issue and accuse the Belt and Road Initiative of spreading corruption do so out of ill will. The fact is that the initiative is a road to clean governance.FL: C1: Big BrainFL: Orphan Drug Act[Berry 7/19] ODA doesn’t give enough financial incentives to ensure dev of new drugs for rare diseasesFL: China does bad cooperation[Tijssen 1/19] Chinese research coop in material sciences and medicineFL: Tech StealingFL: Happens AnywaysFischer 15Many believe quality standards were raised in the last decade, and everyone agrees that new markets were created. Despite the introduction of many new legal and regulatory hurdles, pharma was quite good at adaptation. However, when it comes time to leave the lab and commercialize a product, Big Pharma’s big resources make a big difference, and small companies know this. If nimble biotech companies assume the high risk of research and early clinical development (often in lean start-up models) then Big Pharma can see what experiments could one day become viable products before investing in them. Take, for example, Gilead’s 2011 $11 billion gamble on Pharmasset that had a late-phase-clinical prospect for the treatment of hepatitis C. That late-phase prospect is now known as Sovaldi. 1/19/19Chinese research cooperation activities seem to be targeting specific areas. Most of the growth in China–Latvia bilateral co-publications are in the field of physics and materials science. The same field, as well as cooperation in clinical medicine, is driving the high bilateral co-publication growth rates in the other top five European countries. 7/24/19Despite the intent to improve treatment for rare diseases, there has been growing concern about misuse of the Orphan Drug Act.17,18,19 In 2017, three US senators sent a letter to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to question whether the Orphan Drug Act was resulting in the development of rare disease therapeutics as intended.20 Whether or not pharmaceutical companies are attempting to misuse the Orphan Drug Act, it is clear that the Orphan Drug Act alone was not a panacea for all rare diseases. The majority of FDA approved orphan drugs focus on similar diseases with cancer (31.9%) and infectious diseases (8.3%) therapeutics being the most common21 and less than 30% of orphan drugs targeted pediatric diseases.22 Despite these flaws, orphan drug designations have resulted in increased interest in rare disease therapeutics. Orphan drug designations have been granted or approved for rare diseases including 122 rare diseases in the EU and 300 rare conditions in the United States.23 In the EU it was recently estimated that over 450 therapies were in development for rare disease in large part due to various orphan drug protections.11,12 It is clear that an unmet therapeutic need for a number of rare diseases still exists. The financial incentives associated with the Orphan Drug Act alone are not enough to ensure the development of new therapeutics for rare diseases.Extra CardsContention 3 is the Foreign Investment LawEllis 19 of SRB is set to introduce[d] a new Foreign Investment Law (FIL) to take effect from 1st January 2020<. This law, which was passed on 15th March this year, is a landmark legislation with the stated aim of improving the business environment for foreign investors and ensure that foreign invested enterprises participate in market competition on an equal basis. The FIL will be a new guiding document governing foreign investment in China.It makes sense for engineering, architectural, construction and other infrastructure related businesses from the countries mentioned to be taking a new look at investment into China especially given the upcoming FIL and the need for China to provide a better welcome mat for Foreign Investors into the country. It makes sense that foreign investors from countries who also own part of the Belt & Road Initiative financing mechanisms are also likely to be fast tracked, and especially when it comes to participating in procurement contracts. It also means that FDI into China is about to take on a new, third dimension by the foreign investors themselves; in addition to the tried and tested method of using China as a cheaper manufacturing base for export back home, or manufacturing for the Chinese domestic market, they are now able to export, either on their own or in conjunction with a China BRI project partner, materials and services to third country destinations. The new FIL means it is a pertinent time for foreign businesses attracted to the opportunities that China’s Belt & Road Initiative represents to [helping them] get into the market, establish a China subsidiary, and start to get involved in [BRI projects] a Belt & Road Procurement market and tendering for contracts.Joining the BRI enables greater EU involvement in BRI projects through the FILManila Times 19 BRI brings Europe and Asia closer to each other through land- and sea-based transport links, allows Europe to take part in Asia-Pacific affairs more conveniently, increases the EU’s capability to grasp the development opportunities of the Asia-Pacific region, and expands EU’s influence in the region.There are many benefits of EU involvement in BRI projects Ellis continuesRegardless, these two areas in particular should be of interest to foreign investors in China, both in submitting proposals for domestic procurement and for Belt & Road Initiative Project Contracts. It remains the case that often, foreign expertise and standards can be superior to Chinese in a large variety of technical and engineering applications. China needs access to that if it is not to be responsible for a series of shoddy BRI infrastructure builds that cast the country in a globally bad light. Having foreign investors in China as part of procurement lessens the likelihood for such projects to fail – with embarrassing consequences for the Chinese government. A Chinese built building collapsed in Cambodia’s capital city for example just two days ago, killing 28. Beijing wishes to avoid such dramas, and this therefore opens the door for foreign investors in China to take part in such deals.Beijing has also recognized China’s need to change its BRI procurement activities. Currently, over 60% of Chinese-funded BRI contracts go to Chinese firms, compared to 30% for non-Chinese funded BRI projects. China is not alone in the practice of awarding contracts to its own firms, but many countries have agreed that in the development finance context, this is not good practice. This is reflected in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which calls on donor countries to move away from tying aid to sourcing goods and services from national firms. Instead, donors should rely on in-country resources and create a level playing field for all suppliers, regardless of their ownership or nationality. A similar decision by China with regard to the BRI would provide greater assurance that BRI procurement awards go to the firms best placed to execute a project. Given the competitive strengths demonstrated by Chinese companies in procurement contests around the world, this may not result in a major shift in the share of contracts going to Chinese firms. But it would provide greater assurance that winning firms are those that put forward the strongest bids. The World Bank Group released a white paper last year, Public Procurement In The Belt & Road Initiative that illustrates how procurement practices used for BRI projects could be further aligned with procurement provisions that BRI countries have made in their preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and international standards embodied in the WTO’s Plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) which has also been endorsed by China and Hong Kong. This further underlines the commitment that China has made in its own new FIE laws to improve foreign investor access to procurement, and ties in with Beijing’s own concern that some of its own SOE’s do cut corners in a bid to maximize profits. When this is also linked to Government to Government relations, as it always is in BRI contracts, this can prove extremely embarrassing for Beijing and can result in awkward political questions being asked – something Xi Jinping absolutely wishes to avoid. Allowing foreign contractors more participation in BRI projects lessens China’s risk.Selin 15 of EU Studies bodies and member states support environment-related technology transfer and capacity building, enhancing policy-making and implementation in developing countries under a wide range of international organizations and agreements. Enacting high environmental standards offers opportunities for other states and actors to voluntarily emulate new EU policies. This can be seen, for example, around hazardous substances and vehicle emissions, helping to raise standards in non-EU countries and improve products sold globally (141, 142). Furthermore, European firms may diffuse green technology and higher standards of environmental protection when they operate abroad (143)EU is pushing for higher standards in the BRIHart 19 confirms that However, whereas the United States is currently seeking to counter the Belt and Road Initiative and other Chinese initiatives in a zero-sum fashion, European nations see an opportunity to shape these initiatives. In particular, they are pushing Beijing to make the [BRI] Belt and Road Initiative more rules-based, more transparent, and more in line with high environmental, financial, and social governance standards, which currently is not happening. Individual nations are pushing China to improve its approach in different ways. For example, President Emmanuel Macron Independently, it increases Chinese project standards through competitionElmer 18 said increased competition to fund Asian projects could spur Chinese enterprises to perform more efficiently with belt and road partners. But he warned that Europe would need to increase its communication with partner companies and Beijing in the early days of its initiative to clarify what the rules mean in practice and China would want to see how the first EU projects perform. Greater competition for projects [and] would mean better deals for Asian states said Garima Mohan research fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute, but she agreed with van der Putten that no other actor could match the resources China had dedicated to infrastructure development in Asia.Pollution/Warming Impact (cut this) Zadek ’19: Zadek, Simon. “Decarbonizing the Belt and Road: A Green Finance Roadmap.” Vivid Economics, Tsinghua University, Sept. 2019, Accessed 4 Sept. 2019. CMUnless the BRI switches to greener, more energy efficient development, it could lead to three degrees of warming. BRI investment from China is estimated to total $651.8 billion by 2030 in the 17 key BandRCs74 – 2 of all annual Gross Capital Formation in these countries – but leverage (crowding in investments from other sources and countries) can increase this to $2.45 trillion (7.8 of total GCF). Although the direct GDP growth effects of BRI investment are expected to be very modest (increasing annual economic growth in the chosen BandRCs by roughly 0.24 percentage points per annum to 2030), this set of countries is still expected to experience high base growth up to 2030. Rapid growth will come with large investment needs and carbon implications - the BRI can be a catalyst to help steer future investment and ensure greener growth pathways by setting best practices and guidelines. Adopting historical growth patterns across all BandRCs Belt and Road Countries can drive dangerous temperature increases, potentially enough to induce nearly 3 degrees of warming even if the rest of the world takes 2-degree compliant action. In 2015, the full set of 126 BandRCs (excluding China) only accounted for 28 of global emissions. However, this share could grow to 66 by 2050 if the rest of the world decarbonises but the BandRCs achieve commensurate historical growth patterns77. This repeat of history in the BandRCs would lead to annual global emissions of almost double what scientists believe to be required to remain below 2 degrees, despite action in the rest of the world. The global challenge is even larger if BandRCs follow the most carbon intense growth paths observed in history. In this case, the 126 BandRCs could put global emissions on a pathway to a nearly 3-degree scenario even if the rest of the world adheres to 2DS levels of emissions. Hence encouraging greener growth and alternative development pathways in the BandRCs is essential for avoiding dangerous levels of warming in the future.Schindell ‘18 a half degree increase in warming would cause 153 million premature deaths from air pollutionDrew Schindell, 2018, "Quantified, Localized Health Benefits of Accelerated Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reductions," NASA, , accessed 9-6-2019 TPSocietal risks increase as Earth warms, but also for emissions trajectories accepting relatively high levels of near-term emissions while assuming future negative emissions will compensate even if they lead to identical warming 1. Accelerating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reductions, including as a substitute for negative emissions, hence reduces long-term risks but requires dramatic near-term societal transformations 2. A major barrier to emissions reductions is the difficulty of reconciling immediate, localized costs with global, long-term benefits 3, 4. However, 2°C trajectories not relying on negative emissions or 1.5°C trajectories require elimination of most fossil fuel related emissions. This generally reduces co-emissions that cause ambient air pollution, resulting in near-term, localized health benefits. We therefore examine the human health benefits of increasing ambition of 21st century CO2 reductions by 180 GtC; an amount that would shift a ‘standard’ 2°C scenario to 1.5°C or could achieve 2°C without negative emissions. The decreased air pollution leads to 153±43 million fewer premature deaths worldwide, with 40 occurring during the next 40 years, and minimal climate disbenefits. More than a million premature deaths would be prevented in many metropolitan areas in Asia and Africa, and 200,000 in individual urban areas on every inhabited continent except Australia.Brain Drain ImpactSecond is by preventing brain drain.Underfunded universities in Europe cause students/researchers to leave and brain drain resultsDittrich 19 ’s goal is to enhance transparency and trust with regard to mutual recognition and mobility. While countries strive for balanced mobility, cooperation and exchange in Europe, almost all countries in the East, South and Southeast of Europe are losing much of their talent.This has a devastating effect on opportunities for and the development of universities in these parts of Europe, contributing to a lack of innovation and entrepreneurship in their societies and a lack of jobs.What is the likely effect of an ever-growing cleavage within Europe between the Northwest and other parts? One can easily imagine that the flow of talent towards the Northwest might keep growing; one can easily imagine that these tensions will become ever more visible; one can also imagine that the less-privileged countries will try to rebalance the brain drain. Unfortunately, that cannot be done through the OECD recommendations.Many countries lack the money to invest in what might seem to be rather simple measures. Other policies should be developed to make the academic playing field more equal. And, although it seems no longer the done thing to speak in terms of solidarity, I am convinced that no other possibilities exist. It goes without saying that talent can be found everywhere. It goes without saying that talent thrives on challenge. It also goes without saying that it is extremely unlikely for many who have moved away from their country of origin to return: the standard of living may be less high, the facilities for research and education less developed, and sometimes the necessary academic values of equal opportunity and career-building based on meritocracy are completely lacking. That makes Europe[ean universities] vulnerable to growing dissatisfaction, to growing distinctions between rich and poor, and it is quite probably a further risk for the implosion of the idea of a European culture and European unity.Increasing innovation and inter-country cooperation reverses this trendWhich is why Dittrich urgently warnsI would therefore urge the OECD, as well as the EU and European stakeholder bodies, to establish and advocate for programmes to counteract these very dangerous developments. It is one thing to advise countries to become more attractive, but it would be a good thing for these organisations to find ways to bridge, rather than widen, the gap.Stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship, solidarity and cooperation between universities and countries, creating funds for scientists to return, stimulating institutional autonomy in a context of equality and meritocracy, and supporting societies and universities to take fundamental steps to promote general well-being and social welfare, are [urgently] needed.It is a pity that, although the OECD acknowledges the serious problems of brain drain, it takes a stance that might make the existing divide even wider. This is a missed chance, but it could also be an opportunity for discussion about what could address this important issue.Brain drain devastates the economy.Srivastava 18 — Babita Srivastava, Adjunct Professor of Economics at the William Paterson University of New Jersey, Director of the East Coast College Social Science Association, holds a Ph.D. in Commerce/Business Administration and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Allahabad, 2018 (“Economic Impact of Brain Drain in Developed and Developing Countries,” American Economic Association, Available Online at , Accessed 01-05-2019, pg. 3-9)[destination] developed nations will have too many workers for not enough jobs, causing a decrease in average pay and an increase in either unemployment or highly educated workers in low education work. Meanwhile, developing nations, upon losing educated workers, continue to fall behind and have their economies weakened. As both these scenarios lead to a weaker economy, brain drain has the potential to be quite devastating to the world economy. After all, it damages all nations involved.Brexit is a huge risk to EU higher ed -- research is at risk -- researchers, funding, reputation - china solves a 2016 referendum, 51.9% of those who voted were in favour of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. The ‘Brexit’ process – the practicalities of which are still largely unknown – was officially triggered in May 2017. Brexit may have serious implications for higher education in the United Kingdom and beyond.A threat to the European project at largeEU membership has played a significant role in the success of the United Kingdom, but the research productivity and reputation of UK institutions have also helped the region in achieving great visibility in the global higher education and research landscape.One salient point that came up repeatedly across the study is a concern not only for the quality and reputation of European higher education and research, but for the future of the European project at large.Regional reputation would be under strain if the United Kingdom was completely cut off in ‘punishment’ for the Brexit vote. On the other hand, favourable terms and a more positive outcome for the United Kingdom might encourage anti-EU movements elsewhere.A ‘hard Brexit’ could be devastating for the UK higher education sector. This would send a rather xenophobic message to potential international applicants and ultimately put the whole European project at risk. Brexit is thus a matter of concern on many different levels for the whole region.Independently, it leads to Brain Drain happening have been leaving this country at a rate of 1,000 a year, but the problem is becoming acute in other areas, like the fields of engineering and IT, where the best trained workers leave. This is a loss for local companies, and the trend makes Hungary a less interesting place for investors, who have traditionally come here seeking affordable talent.To a certain extent, this exodus is inevitable: Hungarians can get employment elsewhere in Europe, which is a good thing. But much more can be done to make this the kind of country where young, creative people want to stay and try to make something of their lives. Even if local salaries are much lower, local costs are also somewhat lower too; many professionals might choose to stay in the country they love if some basic conditions improved.Unfortunately, the system is set up so that an intelligent young person is likely to come to the conclusion that it is time to leave.Not only are grammar schools so underfunded and over-managed by a centralized authority that teachers and parents are holding demonstrations and planning strikes, but funding cuts and politics have also apparently taken their toll on the country’s excellent universities. Professors and students have complained of political interference in administration and downsizing of certain departments based on apparently arbitrary decisions. Our best and brightest students will assess the situation and figure out how to get their education elsewhere. And if they cannot leave the country for schooling, they can definitely leave after graduation. HYPERLINK "" \h ’s goal is to enhance transparency and trust with regard to mutual recognition and mobility. While countries strive for balanced mobility, cooperation and exchange in Europe, almost all countries in the East, South and Southeast of Europe are losing much of their talent.This has a devastating effect on opportunities for and the development of universities in these parts of Europe, contributing to a lack of innovation and entrepreneurship in their societies and a lack of jobs.What is the likely effect of an ever-growing cleavage within Europe between the Northwest and other parts? One can easily imagine that the flow of talent towards the Northwest might keep growing; one can easily imagine that these tensions will become ever more visible; one can also imagine that the less-privileged countries will try to rebalance the brain drain. Unfortunately, that cannot be done through the OECD recommendations.Many countries lack the money to invest in what might seem to be rather simple measures. Other policies should be developed to make the academic playing field more equal. And, although it seems no longer the done thing to speak in terms of solidarity, I am convinced that no other possibilities exist. It goes without saying that talent can be found everywhere.It goes without saying that talent thrives on challenge. It also goes without saying that it is extremely unlikely for many who have moved away from their country of origin to return: the standard of living may be less high, the facilities for research and education less developed, and sometimes the necessary academic values of equal opportunity and career-building based on meritocracy are completely lacking.That makes Europe vulnerable to growing dissatisfaction, to growing distinctions between rich and poor, and it is quite probably a further risk for the implosion of the idea of a European culture and European unity.Bridging the gapI would therefore urge the OECD, as well as the EU and European stakeholder bodies, to establish and advocate for programmes to counteract these very dangerous developments. It is one thing to advise countries to become more attractive, but it would be a good thing for these organisations to find ways to bridge, rather than widen, the gap.Stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship, solidarity and cooperation between universities and countries, creating funds for scientists to return, stimulating institutional autonomy in a context of equality and meritocracy, and supporting societies and universities to take fundamental steps to promote general well-being and social welfare, are needed.It is a pity that, although the OECD acknowledges the serious problems of brain drain, it takes a stance that might make the existing divide even wider. This is a missed chance, but it could also be an opportunity for discussion about what could address this important issue.Brain drain from developing nations devastates the world economy.Srivastava 18 — Babita Srivastava, Adjunct Professor of Economics at the William Paterson University of New Jersey, Director of the East Coast College Social Science Association, holds a Ph.D. in Commerce/Business Administration and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Allahabad, 2018 (“Economic Impact of Brain Drain in Developed and Developing Countries,” American Economic Association, Available Online at , Accessed 01-05-2019, pg. 3-9)Even though there are some positive effects of brain drain, on the whole, there are more negative effects on both the country where the brain drain is happening and the economies of the countries to which skilled professionals emigrate. First and foremost, brain drain causes developing countries to lose the ability to progress. Talented people are born, raised, and educated in their country, and when it comes time to work and give back what they were provided, they leave and seek employment elsewhere. As shown in the figure below, the top three main reasons why people choose to leave their country are: career prospects, social injustice and compensation, with career prospects being the highest percentage with 66%. The country loses people who can help improve the economy and, by extension, the country itself. Highly skilled people are valuable factors in the world economy (Davis and Hart, 2010, p. 509). Davis and Hart (2010) state, “In 2000, a person with a university or graduate school education was six times more likely to migrate legally than one with less than a high school education” (p.509). Instead, developing countries continue to face many problems, such as poverty and lack of technological advancements, as well as fewer opportunities.Another negative impact is that countries develop slower once they lose their talented and skillful citizens. Whereas developing countries lose their talent, developed countries end up gaining it and having an overabundance of skilled workers trying to enter the workforce and fewer available jobs. The United State remains the central hub of the global high skill migration system (Davis and Hart, 2010, p. 511). As shown in the below figure, the number of immigrants migrating to the U.S. has been increasing over the last few decades and is expected to rise through 2020. As a result of brain drain, the United States faces many problems.Developing countries might also suffer from economic loss, which reduces their development even further and their production of more talented people. The drain effect refers to the fall in the stock of human capital that follows skilled emigration (Romero, 2013, p.186). With this suffering economy, there will also be a reduced quality of life for the rest of the population. In one side of the argument against brain drain, it was concluded that the loss of the skillful people, with their migration from their country, would affect those who decided to continue to reside in that country (Canibano & Woolley, 2015, p. 117). Without growth and the improvement that could have been provided by the skillful and educated people who left, the country then can no longer attempt to compete globally and are left isolated from the rest of the world. This isolation can slow development and progress even further and cause a nation to grow even poorer.Developed countries have a technological advantage over developing countries, sometimes by a margin of years or even decades. For example, where nearly everyone in a country such as the United States is connected to the internet, often via a device they can carry in their pocket, they have a connection to nearly everyone else with such a device. Meanwhile, many developing countries suffer from massive power blackouts, where citizens must work and play in darkness or via kerosene lamps. These citizens are isolated, putting them at a disadvantage in the fast and ever moving worlds of various sectors of economics and life, from scientific research to business transactions. Medical technology is also far behind in many of these places. The more citizens must worry about illness and death, and the inability to either pay for treatment or even an inability to access treatment, the more motivated a highly educated citizen is to leave for a more developed country.One such nation that suffers from this effect is India. India is one of the main countries that experiences brain drain. Indian-Americans are amongst the most highly educated; many of them who are Indian-born, have completed college and most have at least a bachelor’s degree (Davis & Hart, 2010, p.516). India has a massive population but ranks globally 163rd in terms of capita income at US$1070 (Davis & Hart, 2010, p. 516). India has three million college graduates per year, which is problematic because there is a lack of educated work (Davis & Hart, 2010, p. 516). Indian’s cannot get work for the degrees they obtain. They then must look elsewhere, hence the brain drain issue. Additionally, Indians often suffer from a quality of life issue, where many regions are plagued with poverty and rolling blackouts.Professor of Economics John Gibson and Senior Economist David McKenzie emphasize in their article Eight Questions about Brain Drain that the issue of brain drain should be taken very seriously by economists, due to its potential implications not just for a developing country’s economy, but for both the world’s economy and social sphere (p. 111). Basically, brain drain has the potential to cause a dangerous “domino” effect. Logically speaking, overloading developed nations with highly educated workers while simultaneously draining developing nations of such workers is highly detrimental to both. The below data showcases which occupations are held by educated migrants, which also hail from developing countries.Developed nations will have too many workers for not enough jobs, causing a decrease in average pay and an increase in either unemployment or highly educated workers in low education work. Meanwhile, developing nations, upon losing educated workers, continue to fall behind and have their economies weakened. As both these scenarios lead to a weaker economy, brain drain has the potential to be quite devastating to the world economy. After all, it damages all nations involved.As Gibson and McKenzie (2011) note in their article, brain drain is not a new problem and has been written about in some top economic journals that regard it, rightfully, as an area of great worry and serious economic impact. Economists have a responsibility to carefully examine brain drain because it affects not only a single nation’s economy, but also the whole world’s economic system. Supply and demand could be imbalanced if supply outweighs demand. Developing countries are impacted from brain drain at more of a detriment. Skilled workers immigrate to more devolved countries to practice their professions. In a 2010 study, Gibson and McKenzie studied five countries and their top academic students to find their income would increase by $40,000-$60,000 per year if the gifted students were to move to a country more developed than their own. They believed these “barriers also restrict the extent to which lessskilled workers can react to the migration decisions of the higher-skilled,” due to limits in opportunity (2011). The migration of talented workers leads to fiscal decline when those students who relied on government subsidies leave and therefore no longer contribute as taxpayers (Gibson and McKenzie, 2011).Brain drain does not show damaging results right away; rather, it takes time to produce any significant economic effects. The worry of economists is that this problem will balloon to unmanageable levels and action will not be taken against the growth of Brain Drain. The issue is the highly educat[ed] individuals who leave for better opportunities are the only source that can improve their countries’ economic systems. Developing nations rely on equilibrium, where they benefit from other countries’ stronger economies without those same economies drawing away all their resources, which include educated workers. Without this balance, there is no reinvestment back into their economy.Looking at both the positive and negative effects, how should one perceive brain drain and manage its effects? Socially and economically, the negatives outweigh the positives. Therefore, brain drain should be viewed negatively. It should be stopped or, at the very least, managed. One way that it can be managed is that highly educated illegal immigrants should not be permitted to take up the work that they are educated for in the nation in which they are illegally living. They can often work for minimum or illegally lower wages, making it difficult or impossible for legal educated workers to get the same work. The developed countries should also make stricter rules to get permits for work authority.The benefits of RnD go global as technology spreadsITIF in a 2017 study foundPharmaceutical Innovation Accounted for 73 Percent of the Increase in Life Expectancy [worldwide]Scientific cooperation boosts the EU economy in two ways:First is through the AI revolution.By working with China to automate industry workflows with AI,Jacques Bughin, 2-1-2019, "Tackling Europe’s gap in digital and AI," McKinsey &amp; Company, many metrics, the European economy and its businesses have been grappling for years to capture the full potential of current and previous generations of digital tools. It is now more than time to double down on Europe’s efforts to succeed in digital transformation, especially when a new set of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), are becoming more technically pervasive.On average, Europe’s digital gap with the world’s leaders is now being compounded by an emerging gap with the world’s leaders in its development and corporate use of AI technologies. Without faster and more comprehensive engagement in AI, that gap could widen, especially for those European countries with relatively low AI-readiness.The potential to deliver on AI and catch up against the most AI-ready countries such as the United States and emerging leaders like China are large. If Europe on average develops and diffuses AI according to its current assets and digital position relative to the world, it could add some €2.7 trillion, or 20 percent, to its combined economic output by 2030. If Europe were to catch up with the US AI frontier, a total of €3.6 trillion could be added to collective GDP in this period.Thus joining the BRI would increase the EU’s research partnerships with ChinaVan der Wende & Tijssen ’19 (Marijk van der Wende & Robert Tijssen, Jan 11 2019. natureINDEX “China's Belt and Road Initiative finds new research partners in Europe” Accessed 8.20.2019 CB19QLC)China is positioning itself as a regional leader and a more equal partner for Europe in a specific range of science and technology fields. And it has the funds and output to prove it. The country has made headway in the area of artificial intelligence, and recently became the first nation to land a probe on the far side of the moon.The expanding trade routes have especially spurred scientific partnerships between China and smaller European nations, such as Latvia.A China–Europe minister-level conference followed in October 2016, aimed at strengthening cooperation between the ancient silk road trading partners. In May 2017, China [has] published its Belt and Road technology and science innovation action plan, pushing for more cooperation in areas such as digital economy, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and quantum computing. It included plans to advance the development of big data, cloud computing and smart cities, and offered to sponsor 2,500 young scientists for short-term research visits to China, train 5,000 foreign scientists, engineers and managers, and set up 50 joint laboratories.These new Sino–European science initiatives are bolstering research collaboration between emerging trade partners. An analysis of jointly authored research publications in the Web of Science database shows that China’s collaboration with researchers based in other countries [that have joined the BRI] has grown significantly since 2014. Worldwide, more than 36% of China’s research publications now also include an international co-author.Several countries have considerably strengthened their links with China in recent years. Latvia tops the list of 10 European countries, based on its compound annual growth in joint research publications with China since 2013. It has seen an increase of 62% in publications in which at least one China-based researcher is mentioned as a co-author. According to a recent press release by China’s state press agency Xinhuanet, Latvia is not only a highly regarded partner in science, technology and innovation, but also a “logistics hub” for China in the Baltic. The Belt and Road Initiative seems to have had a profound impact on bilateral research partnerships between both countries.Masood continues that China sees scientific cooperation as a win - win under the BRI sinceFirst, there is the concept of win–win that pervades all BRI projects, says Theresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels. Every major investment brings benefits not only to the host country but also to China, which is hoping to gain both scientifically and economically from the ventures. Another difference is that China sees itself as a more appropriate partner for poorer nations because it still recalls what it was like to be poor, says Li Yin, deputy director of CAS’s international cooperation department in Beijing.Impact is preventing global recessionsPoor EU growth risks a recession that brings down China’s economy as well El-Erian 19 SCMP “The extent to which Europe has slowed has surprised a lot of people,” El-Erian said, noting a range of issues facing the bloc, from Brexit, to a major change in German political leadership, long-running protests in France, upcoming elections in Spain and a new Italian government that is just “finding its feet”. The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for Eurozone growth this year [was just] to 1.3 per cent, he noted, “and I suspect we will go sub 1 per cent quickly”.The EU, is China’s largest trading partner and, according to El-Erian, chief economic adviser to the Allianz Group, the world's third-largest financial services company by revenue, has “between 50 and 60 per cent” chance of entering recession later this year or early next.This would mean weaker demand for Chinese exports – one of a number of serious headwinds facing policymakers in Beijing, who have been forced to enact a series of stimulus measures and put its economic reform programme on “pause”, said El-Erian, who previously served as CEO and co-chief investment officer at fixed-income investment firm PIMCO, owned by Allianz.The “sizeable” chance of a recession in the European Union poses a greater risk to the Chinese economy than the ongoing US-China trade war, according to noted economist Mohamed El-Erian.Roberto Bertollini, president of HEalth First Europe Aug 12, 2019Furthermore, automated solutions, the application of artificial intelligence and robotic systems represent additional ways that can help improve workflow efficiency and support health care systems’ transition to new care models, centred on people’s needs. Such innovations can bring accuracy, better planning and better assessment of risks, reducing unnecessary hospitalisations, increasing population health and, ultimately, make the system financially sustainable in the long run.Which is why Bowen 19 concludesIn Europe, through healthcare alone, Artificial Intelligence has the potential to save thousands, if not millions of lives through new AI-assisted treatments for diseases. Science Cooperation is keyRoussi ’19 (Antoaneta Roussi, May 8 2019. Nature “China charts a path into European science” Accessed 8.21.2019 CB19QLC)Most of this activity focuses on increasing trade, but China’s President Xi Jinping has made it clear that science is one of the central pillars of the BRI. Strengthening scientific cooperation with BRI countries is “a key part of building the overall project”, he said last November in a letter to the Alliance of International Science Organizations in the Belt and Road Region, a BRI science cooperation network led by China. The promise of investments in infrastructure and research appeals to many of the economically challenged nations in central and eastern Europe. These countries have battled brain drain, persistent corruption and lack of support for research and development. In this region, Chinese companies are — among other projects — building a bridge to connect two parts of Croatia, although this project stalled in 2012, in part because of funding problems. They are also financing the construction of an energy-efficient ‘smart city’ near the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, which would be the first such development in Europe, according to promoters. From their side, leaders of central and eastern European nations are eagerly welcoming China’s support, as they endeavour to speed up their economic development. The attention from China is flattering for many of these countries, which have long felt neglected by the EU and looked on as inferior by their Western counterparts. They see China as a respectful partner. Robert-Jan Smits, former director-general of the European Commission’s research arm, thinks that scientific cooperation with China is, by and large, a good thing, as long as there are clear and transparent ‘rules of the game’, notably on issues such as intellectual property. four years of planning and construction, the China–Belgium Technology Center is nearing completion in the science park of the Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve. Plans call for the €200-million (US$224-million) facility to eventually house laboratories and offices for some 17 high-tech companies from China and Belgium, all aiming to open up markets in each other’s countries. Companies slated to move into the centre range from pharmaceutical developers to those focusing on solar energy, cancer treatments and medical 3D printing.The privately funded centre is one small part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious economic development programme that aims to increase trade between China and 131 other countries. A modern incarnation of the old Silk Road, the BRI will improve connections through a network of rail, road and marine routes.Europe has a special place in the venture because it was the final destination of the original Silk Road. But although some strands of the BRI end in Europe, China has kept the main powers in the EU — Germany and France — at arms’ length, and is instead focusing its attention on the continent’s poorer nations, mostly in central and eastern Europe. Italy, which is struggling economically, joined the ranks of the BRI in March by signing a memorandum of understanding with China.Most of this activity focuses on increasing trade, but China’s President Xi Jinping has made it clear that science is one of the central pillars of the BRI. Strengthening scientific cooperation with BRI countries is “a key part of building the overall project”, he said last November in a letter to the Alliance of International Science Organizations in the Belt and Road Region, a BRI science cooperation network led by China.Second impact is HealthcareRoberto Bertollini, president of HEalth First Europe Aug 12, 2019Furthermore, automated solutions, the application of artificial intelligence and robotic systems represent additional ways that can help improve workflow efficiency and support health care systems’ transition to new care models, centred on people’s needs. Such innovations can bring accuracy, better planning and better assessment of risks, reducing unnecessary hospitalisations, increasing population health and, ultimately, make the system financially sustainable in the long run.Which is why Bowen 19 concludesIn Europe, through healthcare alone, Artificial Intelligence has the potential to save thousands, if not millions of lives through new AI-assisted treatments for diseases. One of the key areas of focus for us is to work with research institutes and universities to create solutions that would help them detect and avoid pandemic cases. This is possible since the neurons in our chip can recognise millions of bacteria in a millisecond time frame, allowing the doctor to focus immediately on the one unknown (anomaly) virus that could prove to be the pandemic.This would be useful for organisations and WHO to help prevent global pandemics or flag potential so that medical devices can be updated to find the right solutions and have the resources ready to combat these. the global level, Kapsos (2005) finds that for every 1-percentage point of additional GDP growth, total employment has grown between 0.3 and 0.38 percentage points during the three periods between 1991 and 2003 ................
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