Projets urbains associés à la Belt and Road Initiative en Asie du Sud-Est à Rangoun et à Malacca : une géopolitique urbaine sous le signe de la coopération
Résumé
The cities located along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are imagined as nodes where different flows would converge and be (re)distributed. Southeast Asian tycoons endorse this vision : they strive to associate projects for new urban districts to the BRI, in order to improve the role of secondary cities in global urban rankings. I draw on two urban projects for Yangon and Melaka and examine the three layered strategy that legitimate the association with the BRI. This strategy involves discourses, financial arrangements, and actors’ networks. It is subject to readjustments in response to local, national, and international contestations against the global rise of China, its impacts on international security, and the balance of power. In this light, the specificity of BRI-related urban projects appears to be their entanglement with geopolitical rationalities, which determines their prestige but also the volatility of the sociopolitical arrangements that underpin their implementation.