Abstract:

China, which has increased both its national and international economic performance with its internationalization policy since 1978, has recently tended to lead some transformations in the functioning of the global system. The One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR), also known as the “New Silk Road Project”, announced in 2013, means more than enhancing the regional and global commercial and economic benefits under China’s leadership in the 21st century. With this project, China aims to eliminate the country’s development differences and deepen its regional power in Asia and Eurasia. More importantly, it wants to bring a ‘Chinese character’ structure to globalization. After the 2008 Financial Crisis, China’s comprehensive New Silk Road vision, which wants to steer rather than integrate the global order changes, has created dynamics that will change the balances regionally and globally as the most ambitious mega-project 21st century. In this study, China’s regional and global strategies in the 21st century are discussed in the New Silk Road Project context. The most fundamental result revealed by the study is that the New Silk Road Project has the potential to lead to pragmatic and structural transformations in the realization of China’s regional and global goals, despite many difficulties.