Skip to main content

‘Two Hands’ and ‘Two Roads’

From the series News from the Silk Road

The international tensions which China will face on the seas in the next fifteen years could find a buffer in the expansion of China’s influence on land in Central, Southern and Western Asia. Wang Jisi is the dean of the School of International Studies at the University of Beijing and a major figure of the American party in China. His unexpected foray into ‘geopolitics’ has reignited the old clash between different American currents — a phenomenon we analysed more than twenty years ago.

At the time, Robert Manning, the author of The Asian Energy Factor and adviser to the State Department in 1991, viewed Asia’s growing dependence on the Persian Gulf for its energy requirements in the light of geoeconomics and geostrategy and foresaw a possible convergence between the USA and China. From a geoeconomic standpoint, both trade and the funding and development of the infrastructure necessary for Asia’s energy needs were more important than territorial disputes in the South China Sea. These disputes have become symbols of China’s growing stature and assertion of political sovereignty, rather than just a question of energy supplies.

‘Geoeconomics’

of the Silk Road Manning did not totally ignore ‘geostrategy’ — the struggle between powers for and through energy — but he emphasised that there was a common interest in securing steady energy supplies, at least in the medium term. It therefore appeared improbable that China would develop the air and naval power required to challenge the USA in the Persian Gulf during the next twenty years. An arms race between China, India and Japan was not inconceivable. However, Beijing’s energy security would still be based for the time being on the geoeconomics of the markets and America’s guarantees of an open-door policy and free access to shipping routes.

These considerations helped form our view in 2003 that the war in Iraq was an American attempt to condition the speed of China’s rise as a great power by securing its oil supply. Since then a series of unresolved conflicts, two global economic crises and the pandemic of the century have characterised the past two decades of the new strategic phase. Today, Beijing is in the process of creating a fleet of aircraft carriers and building the infrastructure required to extend the Silk Road. By means of these initiatives China intends to play both the ‘geoeconomics’ and ‘geostrategy’ cards. The rise of this new power has disrupted the old logic of convergence.

In Strategies of a Great Power [Beijing, 2015], Wang Jisi notes that: China must consider the protection of its own [oil] interests, but this necessity pushes China to strengthen cooperation with countries in various regions, and this includes cooperation with maritime powers such as the United States.

There are a number of different views in Beijing. One apparently reasonable current of thought argues that the Chinese Dragon should not get bogged down in the quagmire of the Greater Middle East and should leave the USA and Europe to sort out the region’s affairs. They argue that the more chaos there is in the region, the smaller the possibility of the USA countering China in the Asia-Pacific region, Wang questions this view and argues that it underestimates the characteristics of today’s globalization and the speed with which turbulent problems in the Greater Middle East would spread to China.

The era of ten aircraft carriers

These resource-rich regions will probably find themselves in a state of instability with intensified internal and regional conflicts over the next ten years or so. If left uncontrolled, these conflicts will inevitably damage China b threatening supplies, economic rights, and even undermine the unity of different ethnic groups in border areas and China’s Western provinces. The latter could influence national unity and social stability. In the meantime, China should use various means to strengthen its voice on the [region’s] burning issues, starting with Iran and Syria.

Wang believes that realistically, it is impossible for China to rapidly build ten aircraft carriers and that strategic negotiations on the energy arteries are imminent: The United States feels that its maritime hegemony isn’t as secure as it could be and wants the other powers, including China, to share the responsibility. The sharing of responsibilities would contribute to reinforcing China’s military projection: Also cooperation on security matters and military exchanges with interested nations should be strengthened. In this way China will one day use military and paramilitary means to protect its rights and interests.

China should increase its use of naval bases on a ‘string of pearls’ basis (in preference to permanent military bases) in the Gulf of Bengal, the Persian Gulf, in the Red Sea, and along the coast of Africa. Finally, Indian Ocean’s coasts should become an important part of China’s geostrategic chessboard.

Space and imperialism

Both components of the Silk Road — the maritime and the terrestrial routes — form the ‘two hands’ of negotiation and military build-up respectively. For Wang Jisi, geostrategy [...] is a concept which includes geopolitics and geoeconomics. Wang’s view can be essentially considered a criticism of the western theoreticians of geopolitics, or at the very least an attempt to address the weaknesses in their thought. Wang argues that economic development modifies the idea of space: the United States is a nation with two oceans, while China has a ‘single ocean’. However, today — with the development of transport links — these geographic disadvantages can be overcome. Financial flows can also be considered a contributing factor. Anyway, Wang points out how the same geographical notions are grasped by the powers, to the point that, paradoxically, in its history China has had several geopolitical positions.

China’s place in time and space has changed during the course of the history of imperialism. Although it was the European powers that attributed the East label to China, this gradually became the self-awareness and self-positioning of the Chinese in the rapid collision with the West in modern times. Mao’s China also initially identified itself with the geopolitical concept of the East. However, during the 1970s, the main threat came from the USSR and Mao adopted the horizontal line with the USA and Japan. In Wang’s view, Mao’s theory of a united front showed how China had effectively already abandoned the Cold War’s geostrategic concept of East and West.

‘Geostrategy’ of the Middle Kingdom

With the reform and opening up of 1978, China’s rapid development became inseparable from Eastern Asia. China looked East and developed as a great power. Our geographic position has changed appreciably, and we can imagine China returning to being ‘China’, that is, the Middle Kingdom.

Only by becoming an imperialist power — imperialism being a unitary, global phenomenon — can the Chinese Dragon hope to definitively overturn the old notion of East. Only if we widen our perspective and consider China as the Middle Kingdom’ of the Asian continent which is developing westward can we envisage China’s regional power assuming a global role. There are potentially a number of different directions in which China’s influence could spread. Wang connects China’s ambition to play an important part in global affairs, and not merely the affairs of Eastern Asia to its projection westward via the maritime and terrestrial routes of the Silk Road.

The westward imperialist hinterland

In the era of continental concentration of finance capitalism, it would be wrong to mechanistically interpret these tendencies as univocal expressions of regional fractions — i.e., maritime routes as an expression of the power of China’s east coast and land routes as the sole expression of the continental hinterland. Undoubtedly this dimension is present, above all in the building of political coalitions which determine the lines of expansion of a continental a power. According to Wang: the first consideration determining the ‘movement towards the West’ is China’s internal equilibrium. The fact that China has developed economically in an eastward direction means that it must undergo internal economic rebalancing. This will influence China’s external equilibrium.

Secondly, China’s continental imperialism, which also includes the East coast, cannot ignore Central and Western Asia — an area in which the other powers are already intervening. Wang does not hesitate to use the concepts of strategic depth and vital space in referring to the huge land masses of China, the USA and Europe.

Russia considers the Caspian region and Central Asia its backyard: it cooperates with oil producers of the Persian Gulf in determining oil prices, and actively intervenes in security issues in the Middle East. The EU depends to a high degree on energy supplies from the Middle East while the Caspian region and Central Asia are the main areas of focus of its energy diplomacy. India considers the Middle East and Central Asia as the keys to the diversification of its energy imports and to its security policy. Even Japan increasingly sees the region as the key to its economic and security interests. Japan’s economic and security interests in the region are also on the rise.

Counter-assurances of the ‘American party’

Wang argues that the West must, above all, rebalance the relations between China and the USA through the great potential for cooperation. The two superpowers must collaborate on the field of energy policies, counter-terrorism and on regional stability. Instead of seeing anywhere west of China as a battlefield they should see it as a buffer for a zero-sum game in Eastern Asia.

The USA made the first move in 2011 when Hillary Clinton announced a New Silk Road’ and predicted that energy reserves in Turkmenistan could more than satisfy demand from India a and Pakistan via a pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that Tajiki cotton could supply the Indian textile industry. Beijing responded with two ‘roads’ towards the West - via sea and land - advancing China’s central role in power relations as well as in economic exchange routes.

China’s geostrategic positioning is ever more dependent on Central Asia, both its land and sea power are equally important. The common view today is that the security question depends on the seas and countries to the East, in other words on the USA and Japan. But, if the Chinese Dragon looks West, the scope for action is vast.

Decades of ambivalence and multidirectional projection will generate various schools of diplomatic and military thought.

Lotta Comunista, March 2021

Labels:

Popular posts in the last week

The Defeat in Afghanistan — a Watershed in the Cycle of Atlantic Decline

In crises and wars there are events which leave their mark on history because of how they make a decisive impact on the power contention, or because of how, almost like a chemical precipitate, they suddenly make deep trends that have been at work for some time coalesce. This is the case of the defeat of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, which is taking the shape of a real watershed in the cycle of Atlantic decline. For the moment, through various comments in the international press, it is possible to consider its consequences on three levels: America’s position as a power and the connection with its internal crisis; the repercussions on Atlantic relations and Europe’s dilemmas regarding its strategic autonomy; and the relationship between the Afghan crisis and power relations in Asia, especially as regards India’s role in the Indo-Pacific strategy. Repercussions in the United States Richard Haass is the president of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations; despite having ...
Read more

The Fourth Plenum of China's War Preparations

Internationalism No. 83, January 2026 Page 2 According to Nicolas Baverez of Le Figaro , China’s proposed Five-Year Plan for 2026-2030, accepted by the Fourth Plenum of the CCP Central Committee, marks China’s transition to a war economy . At the national level, the focus would not be on rebalancing demand, but on reducing dependencies in order to resist external pressures and international sanctions. War preparations, writes the French economist, are now fully integrated into China’s economic development strategy. In our view, it would be more accurate to speak of a rearmament economy , since no major power has yet moved towards the proportions of a full-scale war effort, i.e., military spending historically measured in tens of percentage points of GDP. Instead, the variations have so far been a few percentage points and fractions of a point. This does not mean that there is no rearmament process affecting the economy and society as a whol...
Read more

India’s Weaknesses in the Global Spotlight

Farmers’ protests around New Delhi have been going on for four months now. A controversial intervention by the Supreme Court has suspended the implementation of the new agticultural laws, but has raised questions about the dynamics between the judiciary and the executive, and has failed to unblock the negotiations between government and peasant organisations. The assault by Sikh farmers on the Red Fort during the Republic Day parade as India was displaying its military might to the outside world — the Chinese Global Times maliciously noted — paradoxically widened the protest in the huge state of Uttar Pradesh. The Modi government has been trying to revive India’s image with the 2021 Union Budget: it announced one hundred privatisations and approved the increase to 75% of the limit on direct foreign investment in insurance companies. For The Indian Express ( IEX ) this is a sign of the commitment to push ahead with reforms despite the backlash from rural India. Also for The Economi...
Read more

The Unstoppable Force: Capital’s Demand for Migrant Labour

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 16 “Before Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s prime minister, she pledged to cut immigration. Since she has been in government the number of non-EU work visas issued by Italy has increased”. This is how The Economist of April 26th summarises the schizophrenia of their politics; and this is not only true in Italy: “Net migration also surged in post-Brexit Britain”. The needs of the economic system do not coincide with the rhetoric of parliamentarism. And vice versa. Schizophrenia and imbalances in their politics Returning to Italy, the Bank of Italy has pointed out that by 2040, in just fifteen years, there will be a shortage of five million people of working age, which could lead to an estimated 11% contraction in GDP. This is why even Italy’s “sovereignist” government is preparing to widen the net of its Immigration Flow Decree. The latest update, approved on June 30th, provides for the entry of almost ...
Read more

“Polish Moment” at Risk

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 3 From the series European news In July, the strategic triangle of London-Paris-Berlin was strengthened with the Northwood Declaration, in which the United Kingdom and France signalled the possibility of coordinating the use of their nuclear weapons through the creation of a “Nuclear Steering Group”, and with the Kensington Treaty, an Anglo-German defence pact. These agreements complement the Franco-British agreements of Lancaster House and the Franco-German Treaty of Aachen. Although Poland signed the Treaty of Nancy with France in May 2025, it was excluded from the recent “E3” consultations, in which only the United Kingdom, France, and Germany participated. Nevertheless, the establishment of the new government led by Donald Tusk, the Civic Platform (PO) leader, in the October 2023 elections, after eight years of antagonism with Brussels under the Law and Justice Party (PiS)-dominated government, ha...
Read more

Speculative Race for Charging Stations

From the series The world car battle If at the beginning of the 21 st century electrification had technological limits in batteries, both in terms of cost and range, these are now partly overcome, because electric cars have a range of 240-450 km, more than enough for 95% of journeys of less than 50 km. The major obstacle remains the construction of a network of charging stations and their integration with the electricity grid. The race between China, Europe, and USA UBS Evidence Lab, a team of UBS bank experts working in 55 specialised labs to provide data on investment decisions, predicts that cost parity between electric and internal combustion cars will be achieved in 2024 [ Inside EVs , October 20th 2020]. By then, the development of car electrification will be self-sustaining without government subsidies. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), in its report Electric Vehicle Outlook 2020 , estimates that by 2022 carmakers will have 500 different models of electric cars avai...
Read more

The National Gamble of Poland

Internationalism No. 33, November 2021 Page 3 From the series European News In a lawsuit brought by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Constitutional Tribunal, which is composed of judges chosen by the government, ruled that fundamental parts of the EU Treaty are incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. This ruling thus denies the primacy of European law over national law, undermining both the political assumption of continental integration and the supranational character of the EU . Vectors of Polish history We can shed light on this event if we consider the four field vectors that cross Poland: its traditional ethnic-religious nationalism, its marked Atlantic tropism, the objective attraction exerted by the European force field, and the looming threat of Russia. The general picture is global collisions: China’s irruption and the crisis in the world order have put pressure on Warsaw to define its st...
Read more

The EU Commission Plans for Rearmament and a Clean Industrial Deal

Internationalism No. 71, January 2025 Page 2 From the series European news Following the European elections which took place on June 6th - 9th, the leaders of the Member States met on June 27th at the European Council. Ursula von der Leyen was nominated as president of the next European Commission, after she was chosen as the European People’s Party’s (EPP) Spitzenkandidat (“leading candidate”). The agreement also included the election of former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa as president of the European Council, and the appointment of former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Subsequently, on July 18th, Parliament elected von der Leyen as president of the Commission by an absolute majority, with 401 votes out of 719 MEPs. On September 17th, von der Leyen presented her team of commissioners to the European Parliament and, two days later, the Council adopted this list of...
Read more

Biden Plan and Global Minimum Tax

Recovery from the pandemic crisis — writes the IMF in April’s World Economic Outlook — is increasingly visible due to three factors: first, hundreds of millions of people are being vaccinated; second, companies and employees have somewhat adapted to the healthcare disaster; and finally governments especially the American have pledged massive government — extra fiscal support. Governmental fiscal interventions have reached $16,000 billion worldwide, have averted collapse of the economy that would have been three times worse, blocking the 2020 recession at a 3.3% drop, and have pushed the recovery rate to 6% in 2021. The overall recovery will be the outcome of a series of divergent recoveries . Only the United States, with a 6.4% growth rate, will exceed the GDP level predicted before the pandemic. The disparity regards healthcare first of all. High-income countries, representing 16% of global population, have already bought up half of the vaccine doses. The real estate, financial and ...
Read more

Euro-solubility

Before capsules and pods, there was freeze-dried instant coffee powder, which of course tasted nothing like a real espresso. Now: for some time we have been following the vicissitudes of sovereigntists and populists with the idea that their political future depended on their Euro-solubility . Referring to the law-and-order, xenophobic and immigrant-hostile traits that have become common currency in European debates, we wrote that a Europe that protects could use the anti-immigration rhetoric of the sovereigntists to keep them on the leash of the pro-European strategic consensus. No sooner said that done. In Italy, as in France and other European countries, that phenomenon is in full swing. In Italy, the Five Star Movement has already embarked on its path to conversion a year and a half ago, entrusted with no less than the direction of Italian diplomacy. And even the Lega, believe it or not, has become a pro-European party overnight. In France, a similar process has seized Marine Le P...
Read more