The “Belt and Road Initiative”: A Strategy to the Rescue of Senegal?

Okan Germiyanoglu
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Okan Germiyanoglu: Paris-Panthéon-Assas University—Thucydides Centre

Chapter Chapter 18 in China's Belt and Road Initiative in Africa, 2025, pp 325-342 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The inauguration of a data center near Dakar in June 2021 and the Fondiougne bridge in March 2022 illustrates the dynamic in relations between Senegal and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), within the framework of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) strategy. The BRI is the central instrument of a Chinese “Great State,” a strong belief of President Xi Jinping (Germiyanoglu, “New Silk Roads” in the service of a “Great Power”? The influence of Xi Jinping’s operational code in the strategic orientations of the People’s Republic of China. In J. Rajaoson & M. M. R. Edimo (Eds.), New nationalisms and China’s belt and road initiative (pp. 69–80). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08526-0_6 , 2022). For some, the African continent is now dependent on Chinese power. For others, Africa will finally emerge thanks to a “win-win” relationship with the PRC. Far from these assertions, we believe that Sino-African relations are not just a strategic and material reappropriation of “dependence” by Africans (Hassan, Contending hegemony and the new security systems in Africa. African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, 9(5), 159–169. https://doi.org/10.5897/ajpsir2015.0772 , 2015) or a mode of action for their leaders (Akindès et al., (In)dependances. Introduction. Afrique contemporaine, 271–272(1–2), 11–17. https://doi.org/10.3917/afco.271.0011 , 2020). They are also an ideal interrogation of the concept of “emergence” by their leaders. Senegalese President Macky Sall seems to want to exemplify this “emergence” through the multiplication of inaugurations of projects financed in part by Chinese funds. We consider that emergence is not only a field of potential political claims (Péclard et al., États d’émergence. Le gouvernement de la croissance et du développement en Afrique. Critique internationale, 4(89), 9–27. https://doi.org/10.3917/crii.089.0012 , 2020), but that it must be understood as the result of a belief system or “operational code” (George, The operational code: A neglected approach to the study of political leaders and decision-making. International Studies Quarterly, 13(2), 190–222, 1969) of its leaders. The study proposes to apply the operational code in order to question whether the concept of “emergence” constitutes a philosophical or instrumental belief in the decision-making process of President Macky Sall.

Keywords: Belt and road initiative; China; Africa; Senegal; Macky Sall; Beliefs; Emergence; Operational code; Constructivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-80400-7_18

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