Sangar Rasul / Researcher in Political Economy and International Relations

The world is currently experiencing a second Cold War, although the first Cold War was more connected to the nuclear and arms race. However, in the second version, the Cold War has moved beyond weapons and nuclear capabilities to the construction of corridors and the acquisition of advanced technology. Within the framework of this second Cold War, China in 2013, with the announcement of the Silk Road construction project, drew global attention to the importance of corridor diplomacy and geopolitics. In response, the United States and its allies in various ways began to move against the stated objectives and hidden agendas behind the Silk Road project. As a result, not only has the project not become cold and dormant, but it has manifested itself more broadly and effectively within the framework of the global economic and commercial system and has extended to the rivalry over advanced technologies. In this context, the geography of Middle Eastern countries has become an arena for the alignment of great power projects, which has led to the emergence of several alternative corridor routes so that they can be used as cards in political, diplomatic, and economic games in the future. These include the Iraqi Development Road, the Israeli-Saudi David Road, and the India-Russia-Europe route. The establishment, activation, and control of these corridors play an influential role in the new and future global system that is currently in its birth pangs. Therefore, this research is an attempt to understand the impact and strategies of using these diplomatic corridors, both in the economic and commercial sphere and in geopolitics and future rivalries.

Roads as a Source of Wealth

The Chinese have a common saying: “Do you want to become wealthy? First, build and establish roads!” This is the result of the reforms and strategies that began in that country after the changes of 1978 and beyond. According to research and observations by economic researchers, it became clear that connecting villages and widespread towns across China’s vast territories to major cities not only became a factor facilitating movement and transportation but also increased the income of the state and people and provided more employment opportunities. Therefore, this lesson of road construction and wealth accumulation was sufficient for the Chinese to make it a diplomatic tool by reviving the ancient route connecting China to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe into a modern strategy for an anticipated new era. Therefore, in 2013, China announced its massive Silk Road project under the slogan “One Belt, One Road.”

Over the past two decades, alongside China’s project to rebuild the Silk Road, the strategy of global powers has also changed, and the axis is no longer solely within the framework of traditional military blocs. Rather, attention and questions have focused on who builds the roads? Under whose control will they be? From what source are they funded and supported financially? In whose authority will the connection and design of road networks be? Particularly, how are the necessary infrastructure, electronic lines, and revenues organized and controlled?

From examining these questions, it becomes clear that due to the independent mechanical nature of corridor operations, through their digital and electronic infrastructure, through supply chain linkages, hegemony and dominance no longer come solely through diplomacy and force, but are drawn through goods, commodities, lending, and product standards. To better understand this vibrant geopolitics of connectivity and the Silk Road and other alternative corridors from India to the Port of Faw and Haifa and to the Suez Canal—it is important and necessary for us to evaluate which power will become the victor of the coming decades and which power will fall—here the intention is not a specific state or power, but rather systems and strategies for managing road and corridor diplomacy.

In this system of vibrant geopolitics of connectivity that is currently occurring, there is not only profit and construction but also the form of a double-edged sword; there is also the existence of danger and collapse. For many peoples, infrastructure construction becomes a source of burden and falling under the weight of excessive debt, and in some cases, loss of independence or reliance on external sources for a long duration. This was clearly experienced when, within the framework of China’s Silk Road project, several African and European countries, through the construction and establishment of railway lines and ports, fell under the weight of a set of restrictions by Chinese companies and implementing parties and creditors, which was later called the “debt trap” in Western-European political discourse. To understand the value and gains, versus the problems and harms of this modern diplomacy of corridors, this research examines several questions and arguments to understand the projection of the future of the new global system that is underway, and this research is for clarifying the current vague alignment of global powers, not for endorsing and supporting one side against another.

Diplomatic Corridors from the Perspective of the Silk Road and the Debt Trap

From ancient times, the Silk Road has been an economic and cultural corridor, both through land routes and maritime routes. Therefore, China wants that historical legitimacy and position that the corridor has, in the modern era, not only economically and culturally, through the construction of roads, highways, ports, railway lines, and even pipelines, to make it a tool for dominance and the use of diplomacy and geopolitics and to make it a foundation for the infrastructure of foreign relations.

Because the Silk Road does not only transfer goods and commodities, it also creates hegemony and dominance, soft power influence, strengthening bilateral relations, and greater cultural spread and integration, and this often is not reflected in an economic contract unless a corridor exists. Another characteristic of this modern Silk Road compared to the ancient one is that in its history, the Silk Road was operated more decentrally—without a center—but in the current strategy that China is rebuilding, it is more centrally and single-administration managed with the source being the Chinese state; it dominates it. Furthermore, due to the expansion of commercial exchange, the scale of revenues and expenditures, and technological advances, whichever side has authority over the corridor, its hegemony and influence compared to the control of the ancient Silk Road is much greater and more influential. Therefore, we can say: the Silk Road is the first and important source of corridor diplomacy, which has become one of the important pillars of today’s global geopolitics and the era for drawing the future image of the global system.

The Magic of Traps and Debt Bait in Modern Geopolitics

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says: “The danger is not in the type of trap and bait, but fear what has been given to you to eat or take,” meaning that an animal or even a human does not fall due to the cleverness and complexity of the trap, but rather the desire and temptation for what has been cheaply and easily given within the framework of the trap to attract them. In today’s era as well, international lending from any side imposes a set of conditions and procedures of that state or international bank on the loan application that the transaction changes according to the type of location and financial status of the recipient and borrower.

In that framework as well, a number of those loans that were given to middle-income countries within the sphere of the Silk Road project have created an unfavorable situation, particularly in some African countries and Eastern Europe, where after giving loans for the construction of necessary infrastructure, it turned out that the method of loan repayment and legal terms and conditions were more in the interest of Chinese companies and banks. It also became clear that the contract methods were not limited only within the framework of financial concepts and obligations but were also bound by a set of clauses of political influence.

For example, in the case of the European country of Montenegro, by receiving nearly one billion US dollars in loans from a Chinese commercial bank in 2014 (which at that time was equivalent to 25% of the country’s GDP), for the purpose of establishing a highway—a main road from the port of Bar to other European countries. Although the European Union warned Montenegro not to sign that contract, it did not listen and in later years regretted it due to several reasons, including: due to the high cost of building the road and the abundance of cutting through mountains and tunnels, it meant that even if the project was completed, the corridor’s revenue would not be as much as the large budget required to be spent, and worse still, according to the clauses of the signed contract with the Chinese side, in the event of Montenegro’s failure to repay its loans, the Chinese side can take ownership of part of state property, such as a port that is considered important from a geopolitical perspective for China, instead of the loan.

Montenegro in 2021 appealed to the European Union for rescue from Chinese debt, but the European Union was not willing to help. Later in 2024, it reviewed several articles of the agreement with China in a negotiation, but most of the obligations remained as they were, and according to the agreement, until 2034, it must be under the terms and repayment of China’s debts.

Also within the framework of the Silk Road and in the European continent, it has not stopped only at lending for projects, but investment is another tool of the Chinese. For example, in the case of investment in Greece’s Piraeus port, after investment in it and its expansion, the Chinese shipping company (COSCO) was able to become the owner of more than half of the port’s shares. Furthermore, in the American continent as well, both important transit ports in the Panama Canal are managed by a Chinese company near the United States. For these reasons, recently America has been reclaiming ownership of those ports on both sides of the canal.

This is seen by China’s competitors as China’s implantation in an important gateway to Europe, and this makes future geopolitical games more complex. In the African continent as well, Chinese companies and banks package lending, design, implementation, and in many cases also management into one package, which has meant that geopolitically China has hegemony over a large part of the continent.

After the clarification of the big picture of China’s corridor diplomacy, including ports, highways, and railway lines, Italy in 2023 regretted and withdrew from the understanding it had signed with China in 2019.

Here there is a truth that must and is important to be mentioned: this withdrawal and characterization of Chinese investments and loans as bad, according to the interpretation and understanding of the Western bloc, is fundamentally not related to the issue of excessive profits of Chinese companies and banks as much as the danger of the hegemony and geopolitics of corridor diplomacy that comes into existence through the Silk Road.

From these above explanations, we understand why middle-income and low-income peoples, even for those countries that are poor in managing their own wealth resources, need to be very careful with any type of investment contract, lending, and the terms and methods of repayment, because in the current era, the construction of infrastructure, roads, ports, and railway lines is no longer a purely economic subject, but rather a mixture of political hegemony and soft power of great powers and a geopolitical trap.

The Chinese state and institutions see that the Silk Road strategy that began under the slogan “One Belt, One Road” has not brought a new strategy for that project in these recent years to overcome these situations, but rather changed the name of the project to the Belt and Road Initiative, and also used new methods which we will discuss in the next section.

China Makes Changes to the Silk Road Strategy

With the rise of critical voices against the Silk Road project and tactics, China moves wisely and brings forth a new strategy and plan and does not show political stubbornness by continuing with that type of strategy that has faced opposition from a number of international actors. In evaluating the changes, it became clear to China that rushing to complete the project is no longer necessary, and also debt accumulation in this way does not serve the Chinese treasury in the long term, which makes countries less interested in the project. Therefore, within the framework of the changes, priority was given to important projects and sensitive positions, and emphasis was also placed on the point that the quality of projects should be raised higher than the previous ones.

Most importantly, the addition of another strategic section to the project, which is the Digital Silk Road, through which, through digitalization, establishing and connecting networks and pulling fiber optics and providing cloud services (cloud centers) and software and data management models and other related topics, China can in another way dominate its hegemony over that geography for which it provides technological and digital infrastructure. This type of advancement in the Silk Road strategy includes these indications:

China does not view those digital connections and roads and ports together only as a tool for transportation and communication, but it becomes a source for creating greater influence and obtaining more information and data.

Also, having control over the soft side tools (software) of corridor infrastructure (guidelines and regulations, data, habits and work methods), creates real long-term influence similar to controlling tangible infrastructure like ports and railway lines.

Therefore, currently, the expenditure of budget and capabilities of Chinese companies to provide those services to the other side weighs heavily on China, but in the future, due to reliance on Chinese technology, standards, and regulations, user countries have no choice but coordination and friendship with China.

With this comprehensive review and revision by China of the project, and despite the creation of doubts about the hidden and long-term agendas raised against the project by the Western bloc, China has succeeded within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, better known as the Silk Road, in having nearly 150 countries and 30 international institutions and organizations sign Memoranda of Understanding or actual investment and implementation contracts. To make our view clearer, despite those criticisms and doubts directed at the Silk Road, the project has been successful in construction in several countries and places, for example:

In the Laos-China Railway project (Laos-Boten-Vientiane Railway), which was officially opened in 2021, with 60% of the project cost being Chinese loans.

The Indonesia-Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway project, this project was also opened in 2023, and the construction of the project was with Chinese equipment and technology and in coordination between both sides.

The Ethiopia/Djibouti Railway project (Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway), this project was also opened in 2018, which has high transportation capacity.

In the countries of Kenya, Kazakhstan, and Sri Lanka as well, in the same way, several projects have entered the implementation phase. Most importantly, the railway line for transporting goods and commodities from China to Europe has been completed in many places and has been connected to dozens of European countries.

What is important to understand in that section is that the construction and establishment of those economic corridors and infrastructure, due to the new era and technology and also China’s new strategy for activating the Digital Silk Road alongside those constructions, the attention and importance of powers has shifted to another digital industry, which is the production of the most powerful and advanced microchips (Chips, Semiconductors), and the Western bloc, particularly America, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Netherlands, due to their links in producing that advanced technology, this apart from other countries of the European Union and Australia, Japan, and other allies of America, putting pressure on the Silk Road and preventing the increase of hegemony and global power of China was the first step in limiting the acquisition of that technology.

This advanced technology becomes a main element in managing and the quality of the efficient operation of those corridors and returns time and budget, and from another side, microchip technology (Chips, Semiconductors) is a main element for advancing long-range rockets, advanced fighter jets, defense systems, and many other military equipment and weapons, and furthermore, that technology becomes a main foundation for advancing artificial intelligence (AI). In the next section, we will shed light on the rivalries of China and the Western bloc led by the United States over modern and advanced technology, which has a direct relationship with geopolitics and corridor diplomacy.

Microchips and Rare Earth Elements as an Influential Weapon of the 21st Century

The modern economy, from defense and military offense to raw energy and solar panels, smart mobile phones to AI, depends directly and primarily on microchips and rare earth elements. Although several countries work on extracting rare earth elements, China executes 60 to 80 percent of all global extraction processes, and the total sum of refining, separation, and final preparation of the product is estimated at more than 85% of the global share. This is an indication of China’s hegemony over those products that are directly the primary necessity for producing advanced chip technology that is made in factories in America, South Korea, and Taiwan. Particularly Taiwan, which produces more than 60% of advanced chip technology, along with the equivalent of NVIDIA GPUs company, have become an influential weapon in the hands of the Western bloc to pressure China’s progress and hegemony.

Therefore, the manifestation of that truth becomes clear: China with the weapon of rare earth elements and the Western bloc, particularly America with the weapon of advanced chip technology, are in a difficult rivalry where whoever is victorious in that game becomes closer to winning the rivalry for obtaining hegemony and influence over the coming century.

For this reason, the United States has imposed strict sanctions on the export of chip technology, particularly those chips that are very advanced and are used in military work and artificial intelligence and are important and necessary. Despite the fact that the West is still ahead of China in advanced technology, researchers and scientists in the field of technology have estimated between 5 to 7 years for China to be able to reach that advanced level of the West.

This issue of technological advancement again returns us to the main argument of this research about corridor diplomacy and geopolitics. With obtaining advanced microchips, managing and controlling corridors, broadcasting data and collecting and directing commodities and goods and exporting technology and other necessities to every corner of the world, that side will have great hegemony that has the most ports, highways, railway lines, and corridors. Therefore, what we see on the surface and heatedly in the news and screens in the technology war between the two great powers, the United States and China, is related to tariffs and chip technology, but behind the curtain, it is more connected to the control of corridors.

Therefore, states and powers that know the importance of corridor diplomacy and geopolitics, every group and alliance or regional powers or two states together try to become a node in a network in that future project of the new global system. Therefore, in these above sections, we drew the map of alignment and rivalry of powers, which was the primary necessity for understanding why the Iraqi Faw Port Development Road is starting to self-construct, and what is the opposing or more intense project against it? Is it the Saudi-Israeli David Road? which is directly related to corridor diplomacy and geopolitics and will be the subject of our next section.

Alternative Corridors from Faw Port to Haifa Port

Why are alternative corridors currently a new and abundant source of income? Due to the expansion of Silk Road projects, due to those opportunities and dangers that the project poses to the economic system, many international actors, including: international investors or states and companies close to and allied with the Western bloc, or regional actors or new regional alliances, have entered into geopolitical competition and corridor diplomacy. Some of those projects have come forward on the basis of better quality and guarantees of good governance and coming with protection of sovereignty and better justice. Most importantly, those types of initiatives or competition are presented as an alternative for those geographies and regions that do not want to fall under the hegemony of the Silk Road or for protecting or forcing some states and actors to distance themselves from the Chinese project.

Therefore, corridors are no longer only a route for transporting passengers and goods with the characteristic of neutrality; in this era, corridors have become a tool for creating long-term influence and hegemony that powers and great powers work on and need and have made a substitute for military force for many of their purposes and agendas.

Here there are two living examples of corridors that, to an extent, if their interests collide against each other, they are: both corridors of 1. Development in Iraq (consisting of highway and railway line), starting from Faw Port to Turkey and from there to Europe, which makes Iraq’s position more important and also no longer connected to only one international transportation route. 2. The Israeli David Corridor, whose design is from Saudi Arabia to Jordan and from there to Israel’s Haifa Port, which works within a broader framework and the project is defined as connecting three geographies (India, Middle East, Europe) together and bypassing traditional old routes. Both aim to open a corridor for connecting maritime route to land and a new gateway to Europe, and with the completion and establishment of both corridors, the first and direct impact is created on the Red Sea route, which for several years the Yemeni Houthis have paralyzed the vitality of that corridor and have put the transportation of the world’s most important maritime route into great danger.

On the other hand, another corridor has also become a focus, and several states and semi-great powers like Russia (compared to China and America, which are counted as number one great powers currently), have their eyes on a corridor that starts from India and passes through Iran and reaches Russia and from there to the gateways of Europe. This corridor also becomes one of the alternative routes, but the quality of its start and construction requires more time and evaluation.

What Do Regional Corridors Change? Why Are They a New Geopolitical Headache?

Diversification Strategy and Risk Reduction: Countries like Iraq, the Arab Gulf, and Israel can obtain the international negotiating position for corridor diversification. For example, they are no longer committed to only one geopolitical strategy, but rather have more options and diversification available to them to adapt situations according to their countries’ interests, not forced due to having only one corridor.

Self-Protection from Corridor Blockade: In the possibility of having multiple corridors, such as the Silk Road, Iraqi Development Road, and Israeli David Road, no global power can blockade the commercial and economic movement of the world for its own agendas, whether it be China or the Western bloc. Therefore, the measure of global harmony at that time will be in the service of the interests of all peoples and in the interest of the availability of goods without political conditions.

Regional Hegemony and Mediation: These new corridors make countries like Iraq, the Arab Gulf, and Israel strengthen their negotiating and investment position and also compete with each other to obtain the best investment offers and attract advanced technologies into institutions and the economic system and the state system as well. Also, due to the strengthening of their geopolitical position, they can play a more effective role in mediation.

Future Scenarios of Alternative Corridors for the New Global System

From these above explanations, it becomes clear that those corridors are no longer purely commercial and economic tools, but with them are mixed the agendas of foreign policy, hegemony, soft power, control, and geopolitical character. Therefore, one of the strong future scenarios that those diplomatic corridors bring with them to the new global system is that the advancement and establishment of those alternative corridors, particularly Iraq’s Development and Israel’s David, is more a confirmation of the transformation of the design of one global pole to multipolarity or a new global multipolarity, where in addition to the American and Chinese poles, the world may become familiar with a third pole from that context, and it is not far from the result of an alliance of several states or a bloc coming forth. This makes these corridors become the choice and diplomacy and geopolitics of poles, which road or corridor goes to the interest of which pole. Despite this, these corridors put better and stronger options in the hands of those countries that own the corridor or through which the corridor passes.

Corridors Between Opportunity and the Tool of Becoming a Victim

States that own important alternative corridors in the future, such as Iraq, which at the same time falls into the center of the alignment of interests of both the China bloc and the Western bloc led by the United States, must have a strong dream and strategy and an organized discipline so that that opportunity that comes forth due to the Development Corridor, which has now entered the implementation phase, is not transformed into a geopolitical headache and the state becomes a victim. It needs these initial steps (this is apart from the need to draft more detailed and careful agenda and strategy for managing the rivalries that arise due to the corridor):

Transparency and Laws: The state must make transparency in investment and revenue a priority and according to laws define the work and transaction framework of the corridor, and also protect itself from a one-sided loan for the project, and the source of loans must be according to clear law and from different sources, and maintain ownership of the entire corridor.

Self-Adaptation and Multi-Optionality: Iraq must not tie itself to only one commercial corridor and be continuous in expanding and connecting the corridor network, on the condition that it does not lose the sovereignty and ownership of the corridor. Therefore, it is better for Iraq to have its door open to all poles, and the effectiveness of a pole in the corridor can be more or less, but it is important not to completely limit itself and not put the corridor 100% to the interest of one side.

Investment and Multinational Producers: Alongside the corridor, Iraq needs to conclude diverse contracts with investment and producers of templates and technology with different countries, because currently, if the source of imports and investment is from one specific country, it is considered a geopolitical weakness and ultimately creates an impact on the effectiveness of the corridor as well.

How the Corridor Becomes a Source of Land Irrigation: Just as in agriculture, if land has a river passing through it, it becomes a source of agriculture and planting agricultural products, in the same way, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region should not view the Development Corridor only as a route, but it should become an incentive for establishing and creating a number of industries and factories that become an opportunity for raising Iraq and the Region’s non-oil exports.

A Strong Negotiating Card: Iraq can use the corridor to obtain new technology and more investment, this comes to be seen due to the power of using the corridor through those offers it presents; in return, Iraq can obtain many things from those countries or those global companies that want to be part of the corridor or use it.

Future Scenarios for the New Global System and the Role of Middle Actors

In the future, due to the intensification of China-America rivalries over the position of leading the future global system, no scenario or prediction is completely clear yet, and determining any design for that global system that is underway puts us in error. However, what is related to the content of our research, which is specific to corridor diplomacy, several different scenarios can be predicted that have the possibility of occurring, and the scenarios are as follows:

First Scenario: Multipolar Connectivity Network

According to this scenario, different and diverse roads and corridors work and play a role together, such as the Silk Road, Development Road, David Road, and the India-Russia corridor. Commercial and economic movement, according to demand and geopolitical differences and the interests of the poles, the use of corridors compared to each other; their rates decrease and increase, which is more in the interest of countries and in a way, economic and commercial systems become more protected.

Second Scenario: China’s Dominance

China works step by step on advancing the integration of both the Silk Road within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and its second one, the Digital Silk Road, which means through controlling rare earth elements and the digital and electronic sphere and regulations and supply sources, to follow its hegemony of dominance over the world, and this is the scenario that the United States and its allies deal with cautiously and suspiciously.

Third Scenario: Distancing and Separation of Poles and Technological Cold War

According to this scenario, it is predicted that the China-America competition goes to a more intense stage, and each pole tries to have its own source of obtaining goods (Supply Chains) specific to its own economic policy and own an advanced technological system limited to its bloc and strict monitoring and restriction on the export of a number of raw materials and underground sources and advanced technology is established, like what we currently see: America does not allow some advanced types of chips to go to China. Worse still, countries are forced to align themselves between the poles and completely go to the side of a specific pole, which is not good for the diplomacy and geopolitics of weak and middle countries.

Conclusion

In the twenty-first century, competition and rivalry between great powers can no longer be separated only by having military force and international treaties, but natural gas and oil pipelines, maritime ports, data cables, and supply sources and constructed corridors and their infrastructure become part of advancing the agenda of each pole and side. Whichever pole and side has control over strategic corridors, automatically has control over the economy and technological and digital system and sources of commercial exchange, and even alliances are easily created and separated, and those corridors become a powerful diplomatic and geopolitical strategy for it. For many countries, particularly Middle Eastern countries, Africa, and Central Asia, the question is not how to enter the world of corridor diplomacy, but what must be: under what conditions and circumstances, what are the guarantees and safeguards? How are they used and played with? The danger of entanglement and falling into the rivalry of great powers threatens them over the entire economic system and sovereignty and ownership of resources as well, particularly with the escalation of rivalries over obtaining and controlling corridors and advanced technology. Undoubtedly, opportunity and success are for those sides and states that do not view corridors only as a corpse or as a tool for movement, but as a design and strategic roadmap for advancing their economy and strengthening their diplomatic tools and equipment. Although this path for the proper use of corridors by those states outside the great powers becomes a path full of ups and downs and difficult, but with having a detailed strategy and having discipline and administrative organization and capabilities and legal infrastructure and transparency and clarity in future steps; they can make those corridors a great opportunity for progress.