The Chinese president has launched a pharaonic project to link Asia and Europe. The world power’s renewed global ambitions are more than just economic.
The rebirth of a powerful Chinese nation. Renewed pride in millennia of history. A rediscovery of tradition now that the anti-Confucian iconoclasm of revolutionary Maoism has been laid to rest. And, finally, a desire to see the world’s most populated country back on the global stage after decades of tremendous economic growth accompanied by less-than-tremendous geopolitical exposure. These are the essential traits of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s leadership, which began two years ago.
This was the agenda that to some extent he inherited from his predecessors, yet it is also characteristic of China’s new and more assertive course with respect to the past. One example is the recent tensions with Japan, a symptom of the revived nationalist spirit that is at the strategic core of the Communist Party’s (CPC) attempt to hold together a society that having lost its ideological and identifying bearings risks being disrupted and fragmented in the aftermath of the economic boom.
One sign, among many, of the new (and ancient) ambitions of the former Middle Kingdom, came during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held last November in Beijing in a futuristic hotel designed by architects to resemble a rising sun. On the occasion, President Xi – meeting with the leaders of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Tajikistan – promised $40 billion (€35bn) in funds for a project that is likely to have quite an impact on global flows: a new ‘Silk Road’, an economic but more importantly infrastructural belt running from the China Seas to the Mediterranean, following the same trade routes of the Imperial Age.
(It’s hardly surprising then that this global expansion of China – the “Chinese Dream”, as Xi has christened it – is built on a harkening back to its ‘classical’ past in an attempt to fill the void left by the loss of ideological and cultural mainstays following the collapse of Maoism and the subsequent materialistic euphoria of the popular “To get rich is glorious” slogan).
In Beijing’s plans, there are actually two Silk Roads. There is the northern, continental Silk Road Economic Belt, extending from the ancient capital of Xi’an through Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Russia and even Germany. And the Maritime Silk Road, which from the coastal metropolis of Fuzhou passes through Hanoi, Jakarta, Colombo and Nairobi (a stopover that confirms the importance of China’s strategic investments in Africa), all the way to the Mediterranean. The latter project also fits in with China’s recent acquisition of important assets in Piraeus during the Greek crisis. On his visit to Athens last summer, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang announced that the Greek port would be China’s “gateway to Europe”.
The plan “opens a new phase in China’s outward expansion”, Chinese state news agency Xinhua triumphantly announced, quoting the president. The agency has furthermore dedicated an information-rich website to the Silk Roads (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/ silkroad/index.htm).
The project is directly linked to another longterm strategy heavily backed by the government in Beijing: the injection of capital investments in western Chinese provinces, to help bridge the growth gap between them and the more prosperous eastern regions. The cities of Xi’an and Lanzhou, which today are marginal compared to the coastal metropolises, and even the more difficult autonomous Xinjiang region would, in the CPC’s plans, be the first to reap the rewards of the ‘caravans’ of the 21st century.
The new Silk Roads are an indication of the special attention China is now dedicating to the vast expanses of Central Asia, a region that despite its extraordinary geopolitical significance and energy potential has long been perceived by the global community as a “blank page in the history of the world” (a description coined years ago by a renowned scholar, which still stands today). It will be interesting to see how Russia reacts to the expansionist intentions – which may be soft but are nevertheless expansionist – of its eastern neighbour in what was also the USSR’s backyard.
For Europe this is nevertheless an opportunity. And for Italy in particular. The final destination of both roads, and the only city located on both, is Venice, which is dear to the Chinese not only as the birthplace of Marco Polo but also for its strategic position between the Mediterranean and Eastern and Western Europe. It’s no surprise that some Italian experts have welcomed Xi’s dream as an “extraordinary driver of development for China and Europe”, as Xinhua reports.
Even the Qianhai Conference, a meeting between European and Chinese entrepreneurs organised at the end of 2014, dedicated a great deal of attention to the Maritime Silk Road. Yet, as Paolo Borzatta, head of the European House-Ambrosetti, one of the event organisers, said in an interview to the Chinese press, “Media reports are not effective enough to describe the huge numbers and figures supporting both projects”.
The fact remains that China, after years of a low profile, has in no uncertain terms decided to assume an international role and to do so as a major power with a project that has a marked imperialistic flavour. And while it is up to Beijing to come up with the best ways of communicating its renewed global ambitions, it is up to others to evaluate not just the risks this presents, but also the vast potential.
The Chinese president has launched a pharaonic project to link Asia and Europe. The world power’s renewed global ambitions are more than just economic.
