La relation continentale eurasiatique dans la longue durée : de la « Route de la Soie » aux « nouvelles Routes de la soie » et aux « corridors »

Abstract

Trade and cultural links between Europe and the Far East have existed since Roman and Han antiquity in the heart of the Eurasian continent along roads that were called the Silk Road at the end of the 19th century. The expansion of the Russian empire and then the USSR, populating Siberia, created a first form of corridor along the transcontinental railway lines of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In East Asia, Japan after the Second World War spurred the creation of a maritime corridor to the Straits of Malacca, which has become a major focus for development and economic growth. China’s strong economic growth since the 1980s has met that of the New Industrial Countries of Southeast Asia driven by Japan, resulting in the emergence of corridors in the Greater Mekong Region and their conceptualization in Asia. The « New Silk Roads » project, both continental and maritime, is a systematization and extension by China, on a Eurasian and then global continental scale, of these phenomena.

Keywords

• Corridor
• Silk Road
• Infrastructures
• China
• Central Asia
• Mongolia