Introductietekst - aanpassen.
This week's Silk Road Headlines
|
Among the news items from this week concerning the OBOR initiative, the Forbes article [The Real Reason Behind What's Driving China's Ambitions For A New Silk Road] investigates what drives China’s energy security interests in the context of OBOR. The article points to Strait of Malacca (what is often called the Malacca Dilemma of China) being a geostrategic bottleneck connecting the Pacific and Indian Ocean, where the American navy has the upper hand. The article argues that the part of what constitutes China’s new pipeline and land-route logic of connectivities in the context of OBOR is an attempt to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The article refers to three multimodal transport corridors that China has come up with which "extend(s) overland from the ports of Bandar Abbas in Iran, Gwadar in Pakistan, and Kyauk Pyu in Myanmar up to China, enabling energy shipments to go partway by sea and then the rest of the way by pipeline or potentially even by rail.” This part of the logic of OBOR (if fully operationalized) will help China diversify the sources of foreign oil and gas for China and decrease China’s dependency on geostrategic bottlenecks such as the Strait of Malacca, thereby reducing potential American pressure on China.
Mamad Forough
To increase awareness of and facilitate the debate on China's Belt and Road Initiative, the Clingendael Institute publishes Silk Road Headlines, a weekly update on relevant news articles from open sources.
For a free subscription to Silk Road Headlines please click here.
For past editions please view our archive.
We link to sites purely on editorial merit. The inclusion of a link to an external website from Silk Road Headlines should not be understood to be an endorsement of that website or the site's owners (or products/services).
|
