China’s New Silk Road: the Project of the Century

Chinese president XI Jinping has named it the ‘project of the century.’ Since 2013 China has invested billions into bringing the ‘Middle Kingdom’ to the forefront of global economics and international politics. What China has baptised ’The New Silk Road’ allows a pair of trainers to be transported by train from China to France in less than two weeks. But they also act as a vehicle for a wave of Chinese expansionism across the world. In Gwadar, Pakistan, China is excavating a giant port, as well as a spectacular highway that crosses the Himalayas, in order to open the doors to the warm seas. At the limits of their Russian borders in central Asia, along a new railway line that serves Europe, Chinese entrepreneurs have installed special economic zones and casinos in the middle of the desert. Further afield than Beijing, in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, the Chinese state has recently established a military port, a stone’s throw from the American and French bases, as well as building an ultra modern railway serving Ethiopia. In the wake of these movements, Chinese businesses are swooping down on east African markets, hoping to make the region one of the new workshops of the world. Director: Elvire Berahya Lazarus