THE NEW SILK ROAD – CHINA’S NEXUS TO EUROPE

AREŽINA Sanja (PhD. Research Fellow),

The Silk Road is a very important trade and cultural communication line connecting the two ends of the Eurasian continent – PR China and Europe. No great power was ever able to gain exclusive control over it, due to its complexity and excessive economic significance. Having lost its importance with the development of the maritime trade along southern Eurasian shores and with the discovery of faster and safer roads, it regained some of it after the end of the Cold War due to the logistics needs of number of countries that lay on it. Since various development initiatives have not started at all or have not been fully implemented, the latest Chinese ‘One belt, one road’ initiative, consisting of land and maritime routes, has attracted a lot of attention and has caused mixed reactions within the international community. The reason for this is the fact that its initiator is the state whose powerful rise as a regional power with tendency to become a global power and whose assertiveness in foreign policy started the ‘Chinese threat’ theory, coupled with doubts of friendly nations that the initiative covers not only benevolent promotion of mutual economic interests and the friendship of the people, but also some particular Chinese geopolitical calculations. However, many issues will have to be resolved before the project sees its completion. These issues do not depend only on strategic planning and promotion of the PR China but also on the willingness of other involved countries, on the current international situation, and on those actors who could benefit from its collapse. As the security situation in Eurasia is very complex and strategic competition for resources among the powers extremely tense, PR China will not be able to implement this project without active cooperation from Russia, the United States and European Union, or at least without securing their non-interference.

Keywords: PR China, Europe, the Silk Road, Eurasia, “One Belt, One Road”, the Chinese threat, the great powers