China, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Century of Great Migration

The book argues whether future migrations will be organized by destination countries or by criminal organizations; whether migrants will travel in a humane way or will continue to die along the road; whether properly trained migrants will boost the productivity of arrival countries or these countries will continue to squander money to build useless walls, possibly far from their border, and pay neighbours, not certainly in the top list from the human right perspective, to keep workers they need in concentration camps.

It suggests that it is in the interest of more developed countries to stop denying their structural shortage of labour and start co-managing with one or more potential departure countries migration flows coherent with the quantitative and qualitative needs of their labour market. Economic fairness and sound economic thinking would also require destination countries to finance the training of potential migrants in the country of departure: in substance to build schools and vocational centres not walls.

China represents an ideal case study in this regard not only because of its history, institutional setting, and international relationships but because in the next decades it will be the country most affected by the largest shortage of labour.