Acceso usuarios
, Tahina Ojeda Medina
Este artículo compara dos iniciativas internacionales: la estrategia Global Gateway (GGE) de la Unión Europea y la Franja y la Ruta (BRI) de China, analizando cómo se relacionan con los objetivos de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible. La hipótesis central es que, aunque estas iniciativas surgieron de modelos distintos de cooperación internacional —la Cooperación Norte-Sur (CNS) en el caso europeo y la Cooperación Sur-Sur (CSS) en el caso chino—, con el tiempo han evolucionado hacia formas de acción muy similares, sobre todo en lo que respecta a su impacto geopolítico. Desde una mirada crítica de las Relaciones Internacionales, se sostiene que la cooperación internacional no se usa principalmente como una herramienta para transformar el sistema mundial, sino como un mecanismo que ayuda a mantener y reproducir el orden existente.
Tanto la GGE como la BRI articulan sus discursos en torno a la sostenibilidad, la conectividad y el desarrollo inclusivo. Sin embargo, estas narrativas encubren intereses estratégicos, comerciales y de posicionamiento internacional. La UE promueve una gobernanza descentralizada y multiactor, con fuerte participación del sector privado y de la sociedad civil; China, en cambio, se apoya en una arquitectura estatal centralizada, con predominio de las empresas públicas y del financiamiento bilateral. A pesar de estas diferencias, ambas iniciativas comparten una tendencia a la financiarización de la cooperación, mediante los instrumentos reembolsables y los esquemas de movilización de inversión privada.
El análisis revela que las formas actuales de cooperación internacional están más alineadas con las lógicas de competencia entre las potencias que con los objetivos de la Agenda 2030. Lejos de empoderar a los países receptores, refuerzan las dinámicas de dependencia y de subordinación, limitando el margen de autonomía y priorizando la lógica de los intereses mutuos sobre los principios de justicia global. En este contexto, el artículo llama a repensar la cooperación desde modelos poshegemónicos, orientados a la equidad, la pluralidad y la corresponsabilidad global.
This article examines the convergence of two major initiatives of international cooperation: the Euro-pean Union’s Global Gateway (GGE) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). At first glance, these projects appear to embody distinct paradigms. The GGE emerged within the framework of North-South Cooperation (NSC), traditionally associated with the Global North’s approach to development assis-tance, emphasizing aid conditionality, institutional reforms, and adherence to liberal democratic norms. In contrast, the BRI is rooted in South-South Cooperation (SSC), which stresses solidarity among de-veloping countries, mutual respect, and non-interference. Despite these different origins, both frame-works have increasingly adopted convergent strategies, driven by shared geopolitical ambitions and the pressing need to frame global development within the narrative of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.The analysis proceeds from a critical theory perspective within International Relations, questioning whether these initiatives genuinely transform the global order or, rather, reproduce existing power asymmetries. Building on the insights of Robert Cox, the article emphasizes that international coopera-tion is not a neutral or purely humanitarian exercise. Instead, it constitutes a political mechanism that sustains hegemonic structures. Aid, investment, and connectivity projects often reinforce the interests of donor states, embedding them in development agendas that appear universal but remain shaped by particular geopolitical priorities. This theoretical framing provides the basis for interrogating the prac-tices of both the GGE and BRI.From this critical lens, the article argues that cooperation should not be understood simply in terms of poverty alleviation or technical assistance. Rather, it is part of a broader struggle over global gov-ernance, legitimacy, and influence. Discourses around sustainability, inclusion, and “win-win” part-nerships often obscure the underlying reality: cooperation serves to project power, secure strategic resources, and expand spheres of influence. The EU and China, though employing different narratives, both use development as a foreign policy instrument, reinforcing their global standing at a time when multipolarity and competition over leadership in the Global South are intensifying.Both the GGE and the BRI claim to tackle urgent global challenges. The EU highlights infrastructure deficits, climate change, and digital divides, framing its response in terms of values such as trans-parency, democracy, and rules-based governance. Conversely, China emphasizes its commitment to mutual benefit, shared prosperity, and non-interference, presenting the BRI as an inclusive frame-work that accommodates partner countries’ priorities without imposing political conditions. These discourses reveal important ideological differences but also converge on the goal of legitimacy: both seek to present themselves as reliable partners to the Global South and as leaders in shaping a post-Western order.Institutionally, the two models diverge significantly. The Global Gateway operates through a complex, multilayered governance structure involving the European Commission, EU Member States, develop-ment banks such as the EIB, private sector actors, and civil society organizations. This decentralized architecture is coordinated through the “Team Europe” approach, designed to promote coherence and visibility of European external action. By contrast, the BRI remains a highly centralized initiative. Stra-tegic direction is set by Chinese ministries, while state-owned enterprises play a central role in imple-mentation, supported primarily by financing from state-owned development banks such as the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. This centralized and state-led model reflects China’s preference for bilateralism and flexibility, allowing Beijing to negotiate directly with partner governments on a case-by-case basis.Yet, despite these structural differences, both models demonstrate a growing convergence in financial logic. Traditional concessional aid has declined in importance, giving way to investment-driven cooper-ation that blends public and private capital. This shift emphasizes risk mitigation, return on investment, and the mobilization of large-scale funding for infrastructure and connectivity projects. The EU’s EFSD+ mechanism, for instance, offers €40 billion in guarantees and €13.5 billion in grants, designed to catalyze up to €135 billion in private investment across strategic sectors. China’s BRI, meanwhile, had mobilized over $1.17 trillion in cumulative investments by 2024, with more than $11 billion allocated to renewable energy alone in that year. Such figures underscore how development cooperation has be-come increasingly financialized, subordinating aid to logics of profitability and visibility.This financialization also reveals a deeper ideological shift. Earlier models of cooperation often in-voked moral obligations or humanitarian imperatives. By contrast, the contemporary discourse stresses mutual benefit and partnership—rhetoric that often conceals underlying asymmetries. “Win-win” out-comes are frequently skewed toward donor states, whose strategic and economic priorities dominate project design. Moreover, the growing reliance on repayable instruments raises concerns about debt sustainability in recipient countries, particularly those with weak governance structures or limited fis-cal capacity. The danger is that development cooperation, instead of fostering autonomy, may deepen dependency and vulnerability.These trends highlight a broader transformation in the global aid architecture. While the vocabulary of the 2030 Agenda emphasizes inclusivity, equality, and sustainability, the actual practices of cooperation remain subordinated to geopolitical imperatives. Far from redistributing resources equitably or enabling independent development trajectories in the Global South, cooperation increasingly functions as a means of securing access to markets, strategic corridors, and political alignment. The EU and China thus represent two different pathways to the same end: the use of development as an instrument of geopolitical positioning.The article further considers the role of recipient states and non-state actors in this dynamic. Offi-cially, both the GGE and the BRI advocate for local ownership, context-sensitive implementation, and participatory governance. In practice, however, the influence of local actors remains limited. The GGE incorporates civil society organizations to a greater degree, particularly in monitoring and advocacy, but final decision-making is driven by institutional and financial imperatives at the EU level. In the BRI, local participation is even more constrained, with negotiations conducted primarily between Chinese officials and partner governments, often behind closed doors. This imbalance reflects the structural challenge of ensuring genuine agency for recipient states in a context where power asymmetries remain pronounced.Ultimately, the article concludes that both the GGE and the BRI are not transformative frameworks but rather mechanisms that reconfigure existing hierarchies of global governance. While their instruments, discourses, and institutional arrangements differ, their substantive impact converges: reinforcing rath-er than challenging the dominant structures of international order. This convergence underscores the limitations of the 2030 Agenda, which, despite its universal aspirations, has become deeply entangled with the foreign policy agendas of major powers.As international cooperation becomes increasingly subordinated to strategic competition in a multipo-lar world, the scope for building genuinely solidarity-based frameworks narrows. The article calls for renewed debate on the purpose, governance, and political economy of development cooperation. It argues for moving beyond the adaptation of existing frameworks toward the envisioning of new par-adigms rooted in equity, pluralism, and democratic governance. Such paradigms would not treat the Global South merely as a beneficiary but as a co-architect of global development, capable of shaping agendas, institutions, and norms on equal footing. Only in this way can cooperation transcend its role as a vehicle of power projection and become a tool for genuine transformation.
