Talk:Lentis/The Belt and Road Initiative

For outside reviewers
This is a group project for a university class. Feel free to add to it and edit it, but please do not delete the entire page just because it is a work in progress.

To the casebook group:
11/14

I have done some research, written a summary of that research and split it into sections which I thought were appropriate.

It may look like I have written a lot but this is just a starter for us so that we can be prepared for our presentation. It definitely needs a lot of work. And definitely needs to be cut down. Please feel free to edit what I wrote, remove excess information, delete entire sections or rewrite them, add links and pictures, or add sections. The 31 resources which I used to find the information are referenced in the placeholder chapter. If you guys haven't started doing research yet, that may be a good place to start to get your bearings before looking for specific things.

-ur6yr

11/24

Hey guys, I had a few minutes so I added a further reading section based on some of the things our classmates suggested in the presentation feedback. I also added some links throughout the chapter. Again, just as before, please feel free to add, delete, modify, or copy edit for economy any of what I've already written. For example, one idea could be to spend less words on the leadership and financing parts and instead add a subsection under "criticism" about the climate impacts of the BRI. That was also something suggested in the presentation feedback doc. Also, we should probably add some images throughout the chapter. Remember that images must be in the public domain.

-ur6yr

12/4

I added some images. Adding some charts or graphs might be useful, but I couldn't find any in the public domain quickly. We could probably create them if necessary. The chapter needs to be copy edited and cut down for economy. I also think adding sections under criticism about environmental impact (carbon emissions, wildlife, water, cement production etc.) and a case study about this might be useful. Although China itself is set to meet their Paris agreement climate goals ahead of schedule, the new BRI involved countries could be the largest source of carbon emissions in the next few decades. Some of this could also be added as a motivation subsection because the BRI creates new markets for China's coal resources, but we do need to be careful not to write too much. That climate angle was something both our classmates and the professor said might be interesting. Here are some links to help get started with that: Yale Climate Connections on the BRI climate consequences, A Duke and World Bank combined study on reducing BRI environmental risks, and Brookings on reducing BRI emissions

Also UVA has its own assessment of the BRI. It might be interesting to check that out.

-ur6yr

12/7

I talked to the professor in office hours. I think it's definitely a good idea to add a section about the climate consequences. We also can probably remove most of the "What is the BRI?" section because it reads like a Wikipedia article and that's not the purpose of the chapter. Things like financing or leadership are not particularly important. We can just link the BRI Wikipedia page. Our introduction already introduces what the BRI is. That will also help us get it closer to the target 1500 words.

-ur6yr

12/8

I removed the "What is the BRI?" section and added a very rough climate consequences section. To see the deleted section look at the version at 22:08, 7 December 2020.‎

I did some copy editing to cut down on unnecessary information and make things more clear and concise. It's likely that a lot of it still needs copy editing. It's hard to edit sentences just after writing them since the meaning is clear in my head. A fresh set of eyes will likely help.

I think the support section could just be removed too since it's just informative. We can just say in the conclusion that people can expand the chapter by looking support and providing case studies or something.

-ur6yr