Žarko Koboević

The Maritime Silk Road and China’s Belt and Road Initiative

China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road initiative aims to connect Asia, Africa, Europe, and their near seas. This paper considers China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The Maritime Silk Road is a major component of the “Belt and Road” development framework announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in late 2013. The “Belt and Road” offered by China, is a platform for China’s and partner countries new engines of growth. The Silk Road (One Belt) and Maritime Silk Road (One Road) initiatives are inclusive and seek the same goal of win-win situation through joint construction, by following the same principles and connecting three continents. Beijing has promoted the beginning of a long series of dialogues and projects that have involved more than twenty Countries by now, from the Chinese coast, to Europe, following the Indian Ocean, reaching African markets, and crossing the Suez Canal. The route has been proposed as an economic instrument to help its own growth, but also to modernize ports and infrastructures of the Countries that have been taking part in it. The Initiative does not have political or military aims, as it has always been stated, but it has been pursuing a peaceful plan, addressed to Chinese wealth as much as to the worldwide growth. The programme has indeed been based on a win-win approach, which is one of the five principles of pacific coexistence, included in the UN Charter: mutual respect, equality, keeping promise, mutual benefits, and the win-win approach itself.