WMU Journal of Maritime Affairs (2021) 20:115–117

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13437-021-00227-1
BOOK REVIEW

Richard T. Griffiths: The maritime silk road: China’s

belt and road at sea
International Institute for Asian Studies, pp. 232. ISBN 978-9-0823-
8105-4

María Carolina Romero 1

Published online: 16 February 2021

# World Maritime University 2021

While attending an international Maritime and Port Law Conference, I was caught by a
presentation on the Chinese port system development and internationalization. Its speaker
shared a map with red and blue lines extending towards Europe, depicting the so-called Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI) along historical Silk Road trade routes. China’s heavy investments
have gone beyond its neighboring countries and the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
The giant’s foreign policy is comprehensive and broad and has already reached the
European Union. Is China attempting to boost international trade to spread its area of
influence further? What are the actual reasons behind its generous offers to countries in
desperate financial need? Have those nations benefited at all after receiving economic help?
Other questions concerning the BRI project can be raised: have their objectives been
achieved? If so, to what extent? Considering these queries, I found it challenging to resist
reviewing “The maritime silk road: China’s belt and road at sea”: a book written by Richard
T. Griffiths.
The author attempts to understand the discrepancies between reality and rhetoric regard-
ing this Chinese initiative, focusing mainly on the Eurasian perspective as he looks beyond
the BRI policy scenarios. This research problem is undertaken through an analytical
approach on several topics. The central theme revolves around actions to boost maritime
trade and interconnectivity along the initiative’s sea leg, the so-called Maritime Silk Route
(MSR), after the 2008 global financial crisis. While including port and shipping, dry bulk; oil
and gas; and cars and containers, with a general reference to seaborne trade, the analysis
focuses on stakeholders’ actions to gain value-added shares along the global trade chain.
This book has six chapters. After introducing the BRI infrastructure projects based on
Chinese funding and their renowned construction skills on roads, railways, power plants, and
ports, chapter one explores the initiative to form a “community of common destiny.” Other
countries’ reactions range from eagerness to caution, the European Union’s skepticism, and the

* María Carolina Romero

mcr@wmu.se

1
World Maritime University, Malmö, Sweden
116 Romero M.C.

USA’s belligerent policies. This section also includes China’s security vision for Asia and
developments related to the South China Sea disputed claims. Chapter two offers an intro-
duction to seaborne trade, ports, and ships. Along the MSR route, between 40 and 45% of the
world’s trade is represented. China’s share of the global seaborne trade was 18% in 2018, with
a shipping carrying capacity of 11.78%. The aftermath of the 2008 global crisis has left an
enlarged fleet capacity with slow demand. With competitors struggling to maintain earnings
and increase shares along the value chain, the stakeholders’ strategies for remaining profitable
are based on higher ship efficiency, capturing additional activities along the trade chain,
securing access, and upgrading port facilities.
Chapters three to five deal with the dry bulk, oil and gas, car and containers, and
manufactured goods segments. They include a description of each sector’s peculiarities
and China’s share in them, with case studies on ports handling facilities (construction,
takeovers, expansions, and scale backs) along with developments on each sector’s
shipping fleet in the past 12 years. Chapter six looks at future challenges facing seaborne
trade and shipping. While acknowledging China’s expansionary policies and the USA’s
underdevelopment in the international seaborne trade shipping, the author highlights the
difficulties experienced by Chinese stakeholders in shaping the international maritime
seaborne trade in their favor.
Current information on China’s expenditure in the maritime trade sector is opaque. As
reported in the literature, an official list or database of the BRI projects is not available to the
public, e.g., “the number of countries, projects, and amounts involved” (De Conti et al.
2019). Moreover, the initiative stretches globally; and its breadth is a tough challenge to
overcome (Ghiasy et al. 2018). The main advantage is that the author has generated a
glimpse over critical projects on shipping and ports, offering readers an overview of China’s
long-term economic strategies and potentials to advance on seaborne trade.
The existing literature focuses on the BRI, including roads, railways, power plants,
and ports in general and from a particular regional perspective, e.g., South Asia, the
Middle East, or Africa. Opposite to this trend, Griffith’s book looks at shipping and
ports on the BRI from a multi-regional perspective, delving into the sea borne trade
(OECD 2018; CIMB 2018; Simelane and Managa 2018; Petranek 2019; Brown 2019).
In other words, the book’s strengths compared to other books on the market are its
original perspective on the maritime branch of the BRI, together with the various case
studies, anecdotes, and its readability. The number of countries, institutions, and
academics looking at the BRI initiative is on the rise. The book’s information could
be expanded by reading Duchâtel and Duplaix (2018), Policy brief on Blue China:
Navigating the maritime silk road to Europe; Ghiasy et al. (2018), The 21st century
maritime silk road, security implications and ways forward for the European Union;
and The belt and the road initiative and the law of the sea edited by Zou (2020).
The categories for the analysis are, in my opinion, an example of the weaknesses of this
book. They vary in terms of port size (the largest in the sector in terms of volume), port
location (along the MSR trade route and beyond it), the nationality of owner and controllers
of the ports, and port capital origins (BRI, private funds). The rationale behind this constant
shift in perspective is somewhat puzzling. This issue is more evident when considering the
criteria for the ships’ tales, which swings from carrying capacity, ships efficiency, and
unlawful acts (cases of piracy, insurance fraud, unpaid wages, and pollution). Without any
links to the Chinese initiative, they reflect other realities of the maritime sector that could be
considered off-topic.
Richard T. Griffiths: The maritime silk road: China’s belt and road... 117

It is difficult to ascertain whether or not the author was able to verify the existence of
discrepancies in the Chinese rhetoric versus reality regarding the MSR Initiative. The data
employed to measure the country’s participation in the seaborne trade differs across
chapters: the value of world exports, the global ranking of imports, share of the worldwide
market, and the network of world container trade. The data employed for analyzing the fleet
(global ranking in fleet ownership, fleet registration, and shipping fleet structure) is also
problematic. Perhaps, consistent data across sectors and a list of BRI port projects in the
Eurasian region would have helped the reader ponder China’s involvement beyond their
rhetoric. With regard to the Chinese rhetoric, it would have been useful to have a clear
definition of the concept of “rhetoric” for the purpose of the research. There is no clear
rhetoric data for the analysis. Identifying the existing discrepancies (rhetoric versus reality)
by just examining numbers is not an easy aim.
Richard T. Griffiths is a Professor emeritus of International Studies at the Centre for
Innovation of the Leiden University, Hague, the Netherlands, and an Associate Fellow
at its International Institute for Asian Studies, where he is in charge of the New Silk
Road Research Project. He has previously published another book on the subject
Revitalising the silk road: China’s belt and road initiative, in 2017. The author does
not seem to have taken a position regarding the BRI initiative; instead, the reader is left
with the final decision on the parties’ statements and claims’ veracity.

References

Brown RC (2019) China moving the belt and road initiative into Latin American countries: Chinese free trade
agreement and implications. Hous J Int’l Law 42:85–136
CIMB (2018) China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Southeast Asia. https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/Assets/
Documents/reports/LSE-IDEAS-China-SEA-BRI.pdf. Accessed 15 Nov 2020
De Conti B, Pereira MS, Prates DM (2019) Belt and Road Initiative: a Chinese marshall plan? Papel Político
24. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.papo24-2.bric
Duchâtel M, Duplaix AS (2018) Blue China: navigating the maritime road to Europe. European Council on
Foreign Relations ecfr.eu. https://ecfr.eu/wp-content/uploads/blue_china_navigating_the_maritime_silk_
road_to_europeNEW-compressed.pdf. Accessed 15 Nov 2020
Ghiasy R, Su F, Saalman L (2018) The 21st century maritime silk road: security implications and ways
forward for the European Union. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI. https://www.
sipri.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/the-21st-century-maritime-silk-road.pdf. Accessed 20 Nov 2020
OECD (2018) China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the global trade, investment and finance landscape. https://
www.oecd.org/finance/Chinas-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-in-the-global-trade-investment-and-finance-
landscape.pdf. Accessed 10 Nov 2020
Petranek L (2019) Paving a concrete path to globalization with China’s Belt and Road Initiative through the
Middle East. Arab Stud Q 41(1):7–32 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/arabstudquar.41.1.0007
Simelane T, Managa N (2018) Belt and road initiative: alternative path development for Africa. Africa
Institute of South Africa, Pretoria
Zou K (ed) (2020) The belt and road initiative and the law of the Sea Brill. Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/
9789004422056

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