On July 12, 2018, Jason Stearns, PhD, senior fellow and Director of the Congo Research Group at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) of New York University, visited the SIAS and gave a lecture on Chinese investment in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mr. Stearns has been working on conflict dynamics in Central Africa since 2001, when he spent a year working for a local rights group in Bukavu. He has worked for the International Crisis Group (ICG), the UN Group of Experts on the DRC, and the Rift Valley Institute. He is the author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.

Throughout his lecture, Mr. Stearns analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese investment in the DRC by examining it in the context of Chinese investment in Africa and the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the DRC’s politics and social ecology. He also shared his views with those who participated on UN peacekeeping missions, China-DRC relations and US policy toward Africa..

Academics from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) joined the SIAS research staff at the meeting.