The Belt Rights Initiative? South-South migration in the age of BRI

Over the past decade, the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) has become the subject of multiple surveys, queries, and analyses. Investigations range from assessments of Beijing’s investment patterns to the alleged use of debt-trap diplomacy; and from the deployment of heritage diplomacy to the strategic construction of a new global infrastructure and connectivity network. A BRI phenomenon that has received much less attention, however, is the presence of Chinese overseas workers.
This panel invites empirical and theoretical submissions examining the impact of Chinese overseas workers in BRI partner countries.
We welcome papers concerning Chinese workers' interactions with local communities, changes in domestic and international migration policies, governments' use of migration diplomacy, as well as investigations that focus on various aspects of the protection and security of Chinese workers overseas.