Diplomatic World_nummer 56.

Asia-Iran-Turkey corridor, as well as the Eurasian links
between China and Europe. It is part of a multicentered
vision of the world, where China is at the center of a new
system of economic and political cooperation, and not a
subset of Western-centered globalization with the US as
the main power of the Eurasian continent.
During his visit to China in January 2018, French
President Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to
participate in projects on the Silk Road routes in Eurasia
and Africa on a case-by-case basis. He insisted that the
New Silk Road should evolve towards a shared project and
does not provoke a new hegemony.
OBSTACLES REMAIN, WHAT ARE THEY?
THE POSITIONING OF EUROPEANS
The enormous cost of the projects is a first obstacle,
even if China has the financial means to initiate many
infrastructures. To be implemented successfully outside the
Chinese territory, the infrastructure projects will also have
to be co-financed by the partners of China. It is also an
opportunity to internationalize the project and promote a
better balance of interests.
Secondly, geopolitical instabilities along these corridors
are an obstacle to investment. If a project leads to distrust
in some countries, opponents to this project might have an
interest in a destabilization of the territories of transit.
Some countries like the USA and India would also like a
reorientation of the connections to have a more North-
South direction than East-West. These rivalries on the
geopolitical orientation of the Eurasian infrastructures
highlights the need for the New Silk Road initiative to take
into consideration the interests of the different countries
likely to be impacted by the project.
Finally, there is the ambivalence of the Europeans
themselves, who are divided on the position to take
regarding Chinese economic power. Indeed the fear of
Europeans is to see trains filled with goods in the direction
of China-Europe, returning to China empty.
Yet some European states are already positioning
themselves to take advantage of the New Silk Road project.
This is the case in the Balkans with Serbia and Greece,
and the Visegrad group, at the heart of the 16 + 1 format,
which includes the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe who seek to connect themselves to the Chinese
project. The 16 + 1 format was conceived after the first
China-Central and Eastern European Countries Economic
and Trade Forum, held in Budapest in 2011. The countries
included are China, 11 EU members: Bulgaria, Croatia,
the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and five EU
candidates: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia,
Montenegro and Serbia.
It has been said, Geopolitics is anticipating the space-time
of others powers.
The European project, mainly embodied by the European
Union, needs to be renewed today. Its paradigms are still
too entrenched in the last century. The project was born in
the context of the Cold War, at a time of the containment
of the Soviet Union, and in a context where Communist
China had not yet reached its current power. After the
end of the Cold War, the project should today adapt itself
further to the emergence of a multicentered world. EU
could evolve towards an alliance of European nations
driven by a geopolitical strategy to reaffirm their own
centrality in the future global balance of power.
It would be wise for Europeans to engage this Chinese
project in a constructive way. The New Silk Road is an
opportunity for the Europeans to position themselves on
the Eurasian continent. It is also a way to ascertain the
project leads to a better balance of interests.
Europeans are so far positioning themselves in a dispersed
way in order to reap the benefits. Therefore, a better
coordination between them would be required. The
project is above all an opportunity for Europeans to think
on a Eurasian scale. They would need to identify their
geopolitical interests as part of a reformed European
project according to geopolitical principles.
For the cooperation projects and alliances of European
nations, geography suggests a better balance between the
Euro-Atlantic, Euro-Mediterranean and African areas and
also Euro-Arctic and Euro-Asiatic spaces.
According to the recent historical perspective, the Eastern
flank of Europeans has been neglected during the Cold
War. The rivalry with the USSR and communist China
held back trade between Europe and large parts of Eurasia
and the shift of the geopolitical center of gravity was
located in the Euro-Atlantic space.
Today, the project of the New Silk Road is an opportunity
for Europeans to connect with the East of the Eurasian
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