CHINA’S ONE BELT, ONE ROAD AND ENERGY SECURITY INITIATIVES: A PLAN TO CONQUER THE WORLD?

Abstract

In less than 50 years China has grown from a poor country to a global power. Export of goods to the developed markets of the West and the insistence on the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence have elevated China to the second largest economy in the world. China's development plans function on a basis of a two-way road and the principle behind it is pretty straightforward, energy import and goods export. The scale of diplomatic efforts to strengthen China's relationships with Asian, African and European countries brings astounding results almost on a daily basis. The Chinese mobile providers in Africa had 475 million users in 2013 and the total trade between China and Africa from rose to US$198.49 billion by 2012. Chinese success stories are not too different in Asia and Europe, where they invest billions of dollars in various infrastructure projects. In March 2016, China came up with its most ambitious project, outlining a $50 trillion plan to create a world electricity network that heavily incorporates wind energy from the Arctic and solar energy from the Equator regions. As the report states, the project could come on line by 2050, but the State Grid wants to begin pilot projects within the next 10 years. This paper analyzes the complexity and multidimensionality of the Chinese plans within and outside the scope of the One Belt, One Road initiative and makes an attempt at predicting one of the possible outcomes of the Chinese plans.