This route could then reach Europe via Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey. On the Chinese side, the Xinsilu, a 5,000-km-long four-lane road linking the Yellow Sea to the Tian Mountains, has been completed. The axis aims to relieve the sea route that millions of containers cross each year. The most emblematic example remains the concession of the Greek port of Piraeus for the management of container and passenger transport activities until 2052, obtained by the Greek government from the China Ocean Shipping Company (cosco), a Chinese state-owned company, fifth largest shipping and logistics group in the world Guillot Adea, “Piraeus, China`s port of entry into Europe” (Guillot 2017). In Djibouti, China must integrate into an environment dominated by strategic players whose interests strongly compete with its own. Its infrastructure adjoins Camp Lemonnier, a former French enclave now shared with an American contingent 9 . Japan itself set up hangars there in 2009 to accommodate maritime patrol aircraft, their crews and a support echelon participating in the international anti-piracy operation. The Indian Ocean – a gateway to energy and an important international shipping route – has always been important to China. And with the Maritime Silk Road, it becomes the incubator of a new Chinese conception of maritime power. This essentially geo-economic vision, with its underlying notion of “maritime connectivity”, does not lead to partnerships and cooperation agreements with coastal states, as it is incompatible with an anarchic maritime system dominated by traditional visions of security and inter-state rivalries. In this competitive context, China`s approach is rather limited to ceding economic power over its partners and building dual-use infrastructure (civil and military), which indicates China`s ambivalent position.
The Silk Road of the third millennium and its original model do not follow a single path. From the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, three different routes reach the foothills of the Tian Mountains, then reach China through a dozen border crossings. The ambitious Chinese project “Belt an Road Initiative” (bri) has a maritime dimension, the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century, based on the promotion of two shipping corridors, whose main route extends along the China-Malacca-Suez maritime axis and, since 2017, along the North Sea Road or Polar Silk Road[1]. The construction of key port, rail and air infrastructure linking China to the rest of the world aims to increase trade flows and improve connectivity between China and regions crucial for its development: the African continent, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia and as far away as Europe. The concept of the “Maritime Silk Road (MSR)” was first introduced by President Xi in a speech to the Indonesian Parliament in October 2013 (Wu and Zhang 2013). This project would include the 213-kilometre highway between Kashgar and Erkeshtam, which opened in September 2013. China`s economic objectives are manifold: to increase its exports, sell its production and find new markets for its construction companies. Indeed, China is in industrial overcapacity.
Central Asia is a growing market. Another economic objective, the creation of these roads, also responds to the need for diversification and security of energy supply. Central Asia represents a great interest for China to free itself from its energy dependence on the Gulf States and Russia. By consolidating cooperation agreements with countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Burma, it also ensures the security of its new supply routes. The Silk Road is an ancient network of trade routes between Asia and Europe that connects the city of Chang`an (present-day Xi`an) in China to the city of Antioch in medieval Syria (present-day Turkey). It takes its name from the most precious commodity that has passed through it: silk. In the fifteenth century, the Silk Road was gradually abandoned. While China prioritizes the goal of protecting its economic interests, it also seeks to place a naval power above a status issue. Historically, most of the great powers formed maritime and commercial empires, such as Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More recently, the United Kingdom and the United States have been defined as thalassocracies, i.e.
states whose power lies in a domination of the seas based on the possession of a fleet and points of support. Certainly, China does not seek to dominate the seas, but to secure the main maritime routes necessary for its development. There is the idea in its desire to develop extensive naval capabilities that the maritime dimension is a necessary condition for the recognition of great power status (Erickson, Goldstein and Lord 2009). The Maritime Silk Roads project refers to a geopolitical conception of maritime security and a new relationship of Chinese power to the sea, a vector of power and wealth. Faced with the analytical framework developed by Alfred Mahan, theoretician of “naval power” (Mahan 1890), this relationship of China to the sea does not lead to the conclusion that China seeks hegemony at sea, but that it prefers a hybrid conception of maritime power that mixes military, civil, political and economic dimensions. Indeed, we can agree that maritime safety is a new field for security studies and international relations. However, the sea is a highly standardized area under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in 1982, which defines the rights and obligations of States, including navigation, the use of economic resources and the protection of the marine environment. Basil Germon`s definition of maritime security invites us to go beyond a concept to explore a range of practices and strategies. This paper will therefore take an empirically dominant approach to developing what looks like a Chinese view of the terms “security”, “strategy” and “maritime power” and their extension to the cooperative concept of “maritime connectivity” that underpins the RMS project. China`s concept of maritime security is still in its infancy and has not been the subject of successful textbooks since the publication of Admiral Liu Huaqing`s memoirs. On the other hand, China very quickly developed a maritime policy. A concern to institutionalize Chinese interest in the maritime domain is found in the 2012 White Paper on Defense.
He mentions marine resources and their importance for the country`s development, stressing the need to make China a maritime power.