In recent years, China has progressively imposed itself on the world chessboard, becoming one of the major global players in the economic and financial sector, in the international security sector, and in the cyber area. However, some concerns arouse due to the dynamics of interdependence/ subjection that could be generated by the substantial influence of the routes on the economy of individual states, when these became the object of Chinese infrastructure investments with evident geopolitical implications connected. If the “Belt and Road Initiative” was completed, it could involve more than half of the world population, three quarters of the trade in available energy resources and about 40% of global GDP, for a trade volume that would value 2,500 billion dollars, according to the estimates.Īrticulated on a land route (Belt) and a sea route (Road), to which the Polar corridor has recently been added, the project has been defined by many as a new Marshall Plan, capable of offering important economic opportunities and creating deep connections between countries. The concrete outcome of the political and economic orientations of the Chinese leader- who has in a short time accumulated enormous power at home- the New Silk Road aims to connect Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Europe with no repercussions, not only of economic nature but also of political and cultural nature, involving over 70 countries in the world through investment flows estimated between 4 and 8 trillion dollars (Devonshire-Ellis, 2017). Officially announced by President Xi Jiping in 2013, a few months after the start of his first term at the head of the People’s Republic of China, the plan “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) – today “Belt and Road Initiative” – it is a colossal project with the potential to significantly alter global geopolitical and geo-economics balances. If the original Silk Road transforms and revolutionizes the economic and cultural perspective of antiquity, becoming a channel of exchange not only of goods, but also of knowledge, ideas and people, the new Silk Road has the ambition to go further, becoming the backbone of a new, immense commercial and political area in which China is destined to play a leading role.
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