Following the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, Western researchers tried to explain its potential by using different maps and the one land and one sea route they indicated. Some, in addition to explaining the route, also concluded – mistakenly – that certain countries were missing out on Chinese cooperation because the routes did not touch upon their territories. The explanation was that, in English, China had initially named the project ‘One Belt, One Road’. However, this is not what the BRI is about at all.
The differences between Eastern and Western cultures are also manifested here. The West tries to understand Chinese strategies, concepts and initiatives with its own thinking, but this is not possible, as explained in the earlier section on the differences between Chinese and Western geopolitical thinking. In this case, too, China adapted, understanding that the use of the word ‘one’ is problematic in Western thinking. ‘One Belt, One Road’ was shortened to simply ‘Belt and Road’ in the hope that the world – and especially the West – would more clearly understand that the project is based on a whole network system and not a single specific route. (Meanwhile, the Chinese name has remained unchanged.) Any country can join the initiative and its infrastructure network; any country can be part of the multilateral cooperation if it wants to.
The Belt and Road Initiative has six main directions:
- Regarding the ‘Economic Belt’, we can talk about three directions:
- From China, via Central Asia and Russia, to Europe;
- From China, via Central Asia and West Asia, to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean;
- From China, via Southeast Asia and South Asia, to the Indian Ocean.
- The ‘Maritime Silk Road’ also has three main directions:
- From the Chinese coastal ports (Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, etc.), via the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, to Europe;
- From Chinese coastal ports, via the South China Sea, to the Pacific Ocean and North and South America
- These were later supplemented by a third route, the ‘Northern Silk Road’, which circumnavigates Eurasia to the north via the Arctic Ocean.
These main directions are interwoven by different ‘silk roads’. In fact, we can talk about connecting Eurasia by land and by sea, without leaving out any country.
A szövegrészlet Levente Horváth: Chinese Geopolitical Thinking című könyvéből származik.
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