The geostrategic choke points of Bosporus and Dardanelles in the context of the New Silk Road

The modern realm of international business has grown to be more and more dependent on the international state of affairs, thus, geopolitics have become an indispensable tool for predicting and evaluating future risks or for identifying opportunities. Because the center of global economic power is slowly but surely shifting from the western countries to Asia, the geopolitical moves of Asian countries on „The Grand Chessboard†need to be studied and analyzed, especially the ones of the leading actor, China. Being the only pretender to overthrow the US from the position of the biggest world economy, China wants to establish new international economic relations, implicitly new trade routes, through which it can secure a supply line for the sale of its products. Thus, China proposes a New Silk Road which is dependent on a series of maritime choke points, amongst which are the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits or better known as the Turkish Straits. This paper studies the future geopolitical and economic implications for this choke point if the New Silk Road comes in existence. The study utilises maritime economic data and geopolitical theory in order to assess the future risks and opportunities that derive from the establishment of the New Silk Road. The analyze results, indicates that the Turkish choke point will change the geopolitics and economics of Eastern Europe. The importance of this is that the countries that are directly linked with the New Silk Road can maximize their advantages in the long run.