▲ Doctor Bruno Hellendorff delivering a lecture. Photographed by Park Min Ha.

On November 5, Doctor (Dr.) Bruno Hellendorff visited Korea University (KU) to deliver a lecture titled, “EU’s Strategy on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): Relationships to Third Countries.” Dr. Hellendorff is a research fellow at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations (Egmont Institute) in Belgium. The lecture was hosted by the KU Nordic-Benelux Center and the Embassy of Belgium in Republic of Korea (ROK), as well as the KU European Union (EU) Center. 

In his lecture, Dr. Hellendorff discussed the EU-China relationship with regard to implications on the rise of China, its BRI, the connectivity strategy, and the international order. The discussion was introduced in three parts: shifts in China’s international and domestic political status, the BRI and the connectivity vision linking the EU and China, and the importance of third market, like-minded countries for EU-China relations.

Dr. Hellendorff began the main lecture by explaining that the EU now looks at China in a more confrontational way, just as China has been showing quite an assertive foreign policymaking. He continued sharing noteworthy analyses that China has been able to maintain its growth by accumulating a great amount of national debt, and that international and domestic security issues can merge into *a double-edged sword* called *nationalism*. Dr. Hellendorff closed the lecture by sharing his insight that it is time for the EU to consider cooperating with China, United States (U.S.), and other like-minded countries such as the ROK in upholding the connectivity and the rules-based international order.