China's Belt and Road Initiative, Marine Transportation and Energy Infrastructure at Sines, Portugal and Piraeus, Greece with the ‘Athenian Riviera’ Mass Tourism Gigaproject

Philip Cooke

European Planning Studies, 2025, vol. 33, issue 6, 964-979

Abstract: This paper provides a critical assessment of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in general, as an exercise in unsuccessfully controlling the contradictions in capitalism of under-consumption, on the one hand, and over-accumulation, on the other. It further analyses the political tensions surrounding the implementation of two spatial planning gigaprojects associated with BRI. The first account focuses on the major Port of Sines, Portugal, acquired in 2011 by China Three Gorges (CTG) which houses an energy and containerization terminal at the end of the New Silk Road variant of BRI. The second account concentrates on the huge expansion of the Port of Piraeus, Greece, which was acquired by China's State-Owned Enterprise COSCO in 2016. This has been accompanied by major Chinese, EIB and other global construction investment in creating the ‘Athenian Riviera’ as a super-yachting, mass and luxury tourism axis along the Attiki peninsula. Theory underpinning the deeper understanding of the underlying patterns of ‘What's Going On?’ with these developments takes the form of the ‘assemblage’ perspective which enables identification of ‘blockages’ in spatial economic development as well as mechanisms which facilitate institutional and agentic ‘desire’ for such projects.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2025.2527347

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