Distinguished Professor Ali Riaz has made two panel presentations at the Bay of Bengal Conversation: Rising Tides (BOBC) 2023 held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and organized by the Center for Governance Studies (CGS).
Riaz was one of the panelists in the session “Culture Wars Across the Borders,” where he underlined that in the name of “culture war,” societies are polarized by vested interest groups for immediate political gains. He said that with the construction of binaries like liberals and conservatives, informed, nuanced positions are marginalized. “We have multiple identities and cannot be boxed into one.” He also highlighted that such binarization has contributed to democratic backsliding in many countries, including the United States.
In a panel presentation on the 10 years of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Riaz mentioned that the investments in infrastructure development projects made under the BRI by China are often opaque and lack accountability. As many developing countries need infrastructure developments, governments tend to accept Chinese investments, but in many instances, these have created a “debt trap” for the recipient countries and failed to become self-sustainable in countries where these investments act as corrosive capital.
BOBC 2023 was the second year of the annual event, which was held October 7-9. It hosted speakers and participants from 70 countries.
