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Mega project of the 21st century, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), modern name of the mythical Silk Road, intends to link China to major industrial and commercial centers, represents the option A paradigm shift that provides information on the postulates put forward by Beijing: mutually beneficial, win-win partnership and respect for the political, social and symbolic systems of the people of the countries and their sovereignties.
Adopted by the Chinese Communist Party in 2013 – celebrated every February 20 – and described by President Xi Jinping as the “project of the century”, the Belt and Road Initiative aims to create new transnational trading posts, all linked to the China backed by a political vision based on equity, knowledge sharing and access to development.
A central project in the economic strategy of the Middle Kingdom, the ICR brings together, to date, no less than 68 countries around the world in three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe, it brings together 4.4 billion people and represents 40 % of global gross domestic product (GDP). This shows the importance of the new Silk Road for the affirmation of China as a normative and peaceful power, oriented towards a humanized partnership, which takes into account the human dimension of sharing at the expense of profit alone.
A powerful tool of Chinese soft power, the ICR starts from the economic postulate with its variants of infrastructure, energy, employment and training, but the philosophical foundation is very important, because it makes the difference between this project and past and present Western strategies that emphasize exploitation, predation and plunder.
Cooperation in crescendo mode
Conversely, the Chinese project is distinguished by a detachment from Western postulates, a decoupling between economics and politics far from any conditionality as practiced by Europe or the United States.
This orientation is the antipodes of the hegemonic and ideological option of Western countries at their head the United States which uses brakes in the name of security to thwart the emergence of any initiative which calls into question the obsolete order established in the aftermath. of the Second World War. China calls for economic globalization based on inclusion and mutual benefit instead of various forms of protectionism that confront developing countries while dictating internal policies to follow in the name of democracy.
On the contrary, Beijing has distinguished itself by non-interference in the internal affairs of States. This allowed it to conclude until February 14, 2023, more than 200 cooperation documents within the framework of the BRI with 151 countries and 32 international organizations.
For Beijing, it is a question of increasing its exports, selling its production and finding new markets for its building and public works companies, China being in industrial overcapacity. Another economic objective, the creation of these ICR trajectories also responds to a need for diversification and security of its energy supplies.
Central Asia represents a major interest for China in order to free itself from its energy dependence on the Gulf countries and Russia. Continental and maritime routes are lined by a complex system of pipelines that will allow China to guarantee the transport of oil and gas.
As we can see, China intends to establish an era of mutual benefit on a global scale by proposing, thanks to significant economic investments and the growth of trade, a new inclusive model between States. This model would be called upon to replace what Beijing describes as dysfunctional economic globalization, that is to say, current globalization with its Western postulates.
Africa, a stakeholder in the “Belt and Road” Initiative, is no longer on the margins of development and international trade. It is also no longer the garbage bin where European powers used to dump their waste. Already on the political and military levels, a sort of African break from the historic tutelage of Françafrique is underway in many countries, notably Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic. A call for new partner actors such as Russia and China is increasingly pressing.
Beijing thus becomes an essential, indispensable and vital partner for launching the second decade of the new millennium. This is what gave rise to the emergence of pivotal countries in Africa thanks to the partnership with China, such as Ethiopia, whose economic growth has served as an example on the continent.
Africa, a real center of the ICR
Algeria is fully part of this dynamic. Algiers joined China’s BRI initiative in 2018, and in July 2023, the two countries announced that they had reached consensus on the “executive plan for joint construction of the initiative.” In figures, China’s exports to Algeria totaled around $76 billion from 2010 to the end of 2020 and $10 billion for the year 2023.
On November 8, 2022, Algeria and China announced the signing of the “second five-year plan for comprehensive strategic cooperation for the years 2022-2026”.
The plan aims to “continue to intensify communication and cooperation between the two countries in all fields, including economy, trade, energy, agriculture, science and technology, space, health and human and cultural communication, as well as the promotion of twinning between the development strategies of Algeria and China.
Algerian-Chinese friendship and cooperation has materialized in at least three major structuring projects: the railways over a length, the phosphate industrial center in the east of the country and the iron mining project in Ghara Djebilet in Tindouf and the rehabilitation of the ports of three important ports in the East and West of the country. In addition to the use of already existing Algerian infrastructure: the trans-Saharan highway, the East-West highway as well as the port of Djen Djen. Cooperation in the technological field has taken on unprecedented proportions. For the first time in history, Algeria is handing over its databases to the giant Huawei. The Media City expected in 2025, which will be built by a Chinese company, will serve as a prototype for this technological cooperation.
These projects in Algeria provide information on the particularity of a shared destiny desired by Beijing, which is to support the development of its partners to make them eligible for a leading role within a multilateral world.