One Belt One Road: Understanding China’s activism in contemporary world. Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in China set off a tornado in Europe (UK included)?

Abstract

The project of economic integration of the Countries of Eurasia, so called One Belt One Road (OBOR) or “the new silk belt road” initiative, on which President Xi Jinping is focusing to realize the great "Chinese Dream" of a strong and prosperous China, until now and notwithstanding a strong and widespread mediatic impact, is no more than a declared foreign policy strategy pursued by the Chinese Government to achieve two different sets of results. The first, and most important (as well as undervalued) is to close China’s internal development gap between coastal and inland regions, through the creation of a widely interconnected national logistic and industrial infrastructure which will serve as the national standpoint for China’s projection abroad. The second and most investigated aspect of OBOR is its international and global scope, which will allow China to promote its industrial and financial power across the world in a truly new way. Despite the general attitude of confronting OBOR with the United States Marshall Plan in the immediate aftermath of the World War II, China is pursuing a totally different strategy, based on a win-win diplomacy and aimed at developing new models of regional and inter-regional integration and economic cooperation. This process is likely to imply great difficulties, due to the large amount of infrastructure needed and the consequent need of financial stream to support their realization. Moreover, the way is paved with undervalued problems, such as the substantial incompatibility between different legal system among the countries interested by the initiative, which is one of the main obstacles to the full realization of OBOR on a its large scale. An important point at stake are is the degree of advantage the European Union could gain (at a time of gripped economic recovery) with an intelligent, coherent and compact approach to the OBOR initiative, which still seems to be shy and uncertain. On this point, much work is still to be done to find cooperation models which fit both part’s needs and interests, not to mention the new regional security scenario which could arise from such a virtuous approach. In every case, despite its geographical indeterminacy, OBOR is yet a reality in terms of political cooperation between European Union, European Union country members (and Great Britain) and China’s Government. The potential of OBOR is outstanding, and an appropriate implementation could bring benefits to all the countries comprised in its route, even in terms of Sustainable Development (thus matching the UN Sustainable Development Goals Agenda).