BOOK REVIEW: CLAUDE ALBAGLI (2020). LES ROUTES DE LA SOIE NE MÈNENT PAS OÙ L’ON CROIT…

Abstract

The promotion of the New Silk Road began in 2013 by the Chinese President Xi Jinping when he presented the “One Belt, One Road” project with the clear aim of increasing infrastructure connections (railways, roads, ports, gas pipelines, oil pipelines, etc.) and trade between the People's Republic and the rest of the Eurasian continent and Africa. The OBOR, now renamed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), constitutes the pillar of Chinese foreign policy, on the basis of which the Chinese government intends to build a future world order that will have its reference pole in the People's Republic of China. A global transport network is turning into a cooperation network between China and the countries involved. The largest post-war infrastructure investment plan was met with controversial judgments; they range from the "pivot of contemporary relations", the engine of a new globalization, the Chinese solution to world problems, the Chinese Marshall Plan, up to a "political-financial error", a pretentious plan. In short, the great Chinese geopolitical strategy has not gone unnoticed. Inevitably the breadth, the complexity and the singularity of this project have favoured the confusion and the controversy. Free trade treaty, investment program, cooperation platform or even multilateral organizations also embody a strategy within the dimension, framework and flexibility described by numerous actors in the world.

Keywords

• the new silk road
• geopolitical strategy
• new world strategy
• china
• bri