Abstract
Does the ‘One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative’ represent a mere nostalgic rhetoric, summing up a wider range of policy initiatives, based on two different regional levels, or is it a bold statement of China’s new geopolitical grand strategy? In its geographic focus the ‘OBOR initiative’ comprises locations which are already within the Chinese government’s focus of interest – Central Asia and Southeast Asia with an extension to Europe, as a primary destination for its exports. Consequently, the ‘OBOR initiative’ can be viewed as a framework of existing political-economic interests of the Chinese government that are aligned to a wide range of different policy proposals. Following such a line of argument one may understand OBOR as the emergence of various processes of regional and sub-regional integration dynamics in which the Chinese leadership will take a more active role. Conversely, one may emphasise the qualitative and explicit adaptations within the ‘OBOR initiative’ that constitutes China’s contemporary geopolitical grand strategy. A final salient point that is demonstrated here, is that this initiative shows that geography continues to shape geopolitics even though we are living in a supposed globalised world.