China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) has been so far a
rather fuzzy concept: Particularly in regard to ports, China has been talking
to virtually every country or, rather, every port manager in Europe and around
the world has been visiting Beijing more than frequently. Lately, however, BRI
has started to shape up, in no small measure thanks to the research of the MEL
journal; Haralambides & Associates; University of Venice; Dalian Maritime
University (China); and Ningbo University (China). Specifically:
In March 2015, with the authorization of the State Council
of China, China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce jointly released Visions and
Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century
Maritime Silk Road. The document clearly emphasized the construction,
and/or the further development, of 15 seaports, namely, Shanghai, Tianjin,
Ningbo, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhanjiang, Shantou, Qingdao, Yantai, Dalian,
Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou, Haikou, and Sanya.
Our research has assessed the “capability for sustainable
development” of the above ports, and on the basis of this, we have divided
them in 4 categories: (a) international hub ports (Shanghai); (b) regional hub
ports (Tianjin, Guanzhou, Shenzhen, Dalian, Ningbo, Qingdao); (c) node ports (Yantai,
Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Shantou); and (d) ports of local interest (Xiamen, Haikou,
Sanya).[1]
At the same time, the Chinese government has identified –so
far ‘informally’- 65 countries of interest along the BRI. We have tabulated
Origin-Destination (O/D) matrices between the above 15 Chinese (BRI) ports and
the 65 countries/ports of “BRI interest”. Our data comprises all types of
traffic: Bulk; General Cargo; Containerized Cargo. This data will become
publicly available soon so as to enable “meaningful port partnerships” between
China and the rest of the world, as well as meaningful ‘visits’ of port
managers to China.
Together with researchers from Dalian Maritime University,
China, we have identified the ports which would make meaningful economic sense
for inclusion in the BRI network in West Africa;[2]
along the Yangtze river;[3]
and along the ‘Maritime Silk Road’, from Valencia-Genova-Trieste-Piraeus to
East China. In the same research, we are also looking at Chinese industry relocation
due to port development along the BRI.
In (Mediterranean) Europe in particular, our recent research
is proposing ways to link BRI plans with the to-be-revised TEN-T Networks,
particularly as EU economic activity is moving eastwards (central and eastern
Europe) and our new, revised, TEN-T will have to be “very different” from the
existing one.[4]
Finally, in view of China’s strong prioritization of issues
of ‘sustainable development’, and its recent conviction to talk only to sustainable
ports, we are advancing new methodologies for assessing the sustainability
of port development, based on scientifically weighing 4 independent
factors: (a) Operational capabilities of the port; (b) Economic well-being of
the port-city and its territory; (c) Environmental performance of the port-city;
and (d) Human capital and technology development.
HE Haralambides
[1] Chuanxu
Wang, Hercules Haralambides and Le Zhang
(2019 forthcoming) “The Role of Major Chinese Seaports in the Belt-and-Road
Initiative (BRI)”.
[2] Kang
Chen, Jiajun Li, Hercules Haralambides and Zhongzhen Yang (2019 forthcoming)
“Determining Hub Port Locations and Feeder Network Designs: The Case of
China-West Africa Trade”.
[3] Yiran
Zhao, Zhongzhen Yang and Hercules Haralambides (2019) “Optimizing the transport
of export containers along China's coronary artery: The Yangtze River”. Journal
of Transport Geography, Volume 77, May 2019, pp. 11-25.
[4] Paolo
Costa, Hercules Haralambides and Roberto Roson (2019 forthcoming) “From Trans
European (Ten-T) to Trans Global (Twn-T) Transport Infrastructure Networks: A
conceptual Framework”.
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