There is a risk that the new silk road will become a mechanism that exports geopolitical competition from East Asia to other parts of the world. An opinion piece in the Japan Times suggests that the early stage of such a process may already be materialising in the Western Balkans, a focus region for China’s Belt & Road Initiative within Europe [Japan, China, and the Western Balkans]. The author, Liubomir K. Topaloff, argues that the recent visit of Prime Minister Abe of Japan to Serbia was aimed at countering China’s growing influence in that region. Coinciding with this visit, the Japanese government launched a ‘Western Balkans cooperation initiative’, under which it will appoint a special ambassador for Western Balkans affairs, dispatch a survey team of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in order to identify projects for cooperation, and organise seminars to promote regional cooperation. A limited degree of competition in the economic sphere between China and Japan is likely to be beneficial for the Western Balkans, but a more intensified form of great power rivalry could have a destabilizing effect on the region.
Meanwhile it is becoming increasingly clear that the Chinese government views its Belt & Road Initiative as covering not only Eurasia, Africa and Oceania but also Latin America. On January 22, 2018, President Xi Jinping ‘called on Latin American countries to actively participate in the Belt & Road Initiative and forge a trans-Pacific path of cooperation that links China and Latin America more closely’ [Chinese president calls for concerted efforts with Latin America on B&R Initiative]. Xi’s statement came at the occasion of the opening of the second ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum in Chile. According to Xi, ‘in the past, the ancestors of the Chinese people and the Latin American people have overcome great difficulties in crossing vast seas and jointly created the maritime Silk Road spanning the Pacific’. As an article published by Reuters points out, China is ‘testing U.S. dominance in Latin America’ as it has become the top trading partner of several Latin American countries [China invites Latin America to take part in One Belt, One Road].
Frans-Paul van der Putten
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