Journal Articles

The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) idea is part of this wider attempt by China to construct multiple lines of communication to its economic heartland in eastern China since the early 2000s. The underlying aim of such a geostrategy is to also develop inner Chinese provinces and shape China’s regional periphery by exercising economic, political and cultural Influence.

In May 2014, Xinhua unveiled maps showing China’s ambitious Land and Maritime Silk Roads.3 The MSR envisions an ‘economic cooperation area’ stretching from the Western Pacific to the Baltic Sea as a sort of maritime highway buttressed by Chinese-supported infrastructure and port facilities in states straddling maritime routes along which China’s trade and natural resources flow.