Announced in 2013 during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Kazakhstan, the Belt and Road Initiative envisages the establishment of a trade order centred on cooperation and shaped by a mutual win-win approach in the 21st century, a time of increasing blocisation. In this context, around 1 trillion dollars of resources have been created for the initiative over a 10-year period.
In this context, Ankara Center for Crisis and Political Studies (ANKASAM) shares the views of Drake University Lecturer Prof. Dr David Skidmore to evaluate the current situation of the Belt and Road Initiative. Prof. Dr David Skidmore shares his views with you, our esteemed readers.
1.Belt and Road Initiative is also known as “21st Century Silk Road” and “Modern Silk Road”. What is your approach to this initiative?
The presentation explaining the initiative used a map showing a route linking China and Southeast Asia to South and Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe. In this sense, the initiative aimed to increase interaction between regions through investments in infrastructure, including roads, railways, airports, power plants, electricity grids and gas pipelines. Moreover, over time, the Belt and Road Initiative has been extended to other regions, including Africa, Latin America and the Arctic, and has become globalised in a sense.
2. What potential opportunities does this initiative offer?
In the 10 years since the inception of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested around 1 trillion dollars in infrastructure investments. Moreover, this does not include the commercial investments incentivised under the initiative. Therefore, the Belt and Road Initiative, driven by Chinese investments, plays a critical role in addressing infrastructure deficiencies in the countries along the route that cannot be financed in any other way.
3- What are China’s political and economic motivations behind this initiative?
Initially, the motivations were mainly local. They can be listed as follows:
1. To recycle the huge dollar reserves accumulated through large trade surpluses
2. Provide continued growth opportunities for the huge construction firms that emerged during China’s infrastructure boom after 2008, as the need for further infrastructure spending at home diminishes
3. Cheaper and more reliable access to the raw materials needed to feed China’s manufacturing industries.
In addition, China aims to develop its Western provinces by linking them to the economies of Central Asia, By building oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia, it has aimed to overcome energy bottlenecks such as the Strait of Malacca and to consolidate its strategic relationship with Pakistan. At the same time, the Belt and Road Initiative could open the door for China to build political support in the GLOBAL SOUTH in its competition with the United States.
Prof. Dr David SKIDMORE
David Skidmore received his PhD from Stanford University and taught at Hamilton College and the University of Notre Dame before coming to Drake in 1989. During the 1996-1997 academic year, he taught at the Centre for Chinese and American Studies at Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University in Nanjing, China. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hong Kong in 2010-2011. At Drake University, Skidmore has served as Director of the Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship (2002-2017) and the Nelson Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs (2012-2017). He is the former director of the Drake Curriculum and First Year Seminar programmes. His research and teaching interests include international political economy, American foreign policy, and theories of international relations.
