From Globalization to Interconnectivity: spatial reconfiguration in Belt & Road initiative and implications for the Global South

Abstract

The term globalization is probably one of the most controversial, ambiguous and ubiquitous of the contemporary political discourse. Nevertheless, the present article starts both from this concept and from a discussion regarding the “spatial” and “ temporal” components required by its application. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) initiative “The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road” represent, to a great extent, a direct challenge to neoliberal globalization and an interconnection proposal that emerges as a regional initiative and expands as China’s global project, reconfiguring the economic geography through unprecedented massive investments in infrastructure. The purpose of our article is to analyze this process, the PRC’s role and the implications in: 1) global geopolitics, considering the opening of new maritime and land transport routes (corridors); 2) the institutional transformations of global economic governance, and 3) the relevance of the Global South and the emerging powers.