Abstract
Paulo Duarte explores the security implications of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative in the context of Chinese (re)emergence. It sees the OBOR project as being embedded with the triple securitisation of Chinese interests: economic, physical/military and soft powers. The author sees the OBOR as an initiative by a pragmatic and nostalgic China to maintain internal stability and to deal with potential economic constraints. At the same time, it might provide leeway for Beijing to move West in a context where its eastern frontier is faced with many uncertainties and even tensions.
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- 1.
More recently, China has sought to expand its soft power through a series of initiatives. Morrison, recalls, for example, that in July 2014 “China, along with Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, announced the creation of a $100 billion ‘New Development Bank’”, or that “in October 2014, China launched the creation of a new $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Development Bank”, or even that “in November 2014, China announced that it would contribute $40 billion to a new Silk Road Fund designed to improve trade and transport links in Asia”, and, that “in April 2015, China announced that it would invest $46 billion in infrastructure development in Pakistan” (2015: 42).
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By building for this purpose an underwater tunnel of a length of about 200 km at the Bering Strait. According to Lanjian and Wei, “the whole line shall total about 13,000 km, if built, it will eventually connect Beijing, New York and even Washington D.C.” (2015: 318).
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The Two Oceans Railway refers to a railway construction project of about 5000 km that passes through the South American continent, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic coasts (Lanjian and Wei 2015).
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I am obviously in an area of pure speculation, but in geopolitics, I believe it is not inappropriate to exclude prospective scenarios, especially considering that the time scale for the implementation of global securitisation would be generations or decades, and that China has been able, as an ancestral power, to wait for its time.
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For this purpose, President Xi Jinping has focused, among ASEAN members, his speech on a “win-win” strategy, on the apology of a “shared destiny between China and ASEAN members”, explaining that “China is ready to open itself wider to ASEAN countries” and to enable them to “profit more from China’s development” (Wu and Zhang 2013: para. 11).
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The perception of the threat, according to the theory of the Copenhagen School.
- 7.
At the cultural level, I underline the aspiration to China’s rejuvenation, as advocated by Xi Jinping.
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Whose area is less than that of the city of Chicago.
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Sea denial is a military term that describes the attempt to deny, to the enemy, the use of the sea (usually through maritime and/or port blockades).
- 10.
The term “blue-water navy” means a naval force capable of operating in deep waters of open oceans.
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Duarte, P. (2019). China’s Momentum: The “One Belt One Road” Triple’s Securitisation. In: Xing, L. (eds) Mapping China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ Initiative. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92201-0_6
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