War in Ukraine, tensions in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific, Covid-19, global warming… To understand the new facts of the world’s march, we have chosen the prism of the cartographic vision. Three representations call our attention. The first relates the weight of hydrocarbons in Europe, in particular the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline linking Russia to Germany, and the Ukrainian conflict which is poisoning the Old Continent and threatening world peace, following violations of international law by Moscow and blows once morest the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In the name of a neo-imperial ambition, post-Soviet Russia disfigures neighboring states, which refuse any vassalization in its regard. As if, on the Russian side, the world might still be divided into spheres of influence.
The second shows China’s economic progress on the world map between 2000 and today. In twenty years, China has become the first economic partner of practically all the countries in Asia, Oceania, Africa and even in Eastern Europe in front of the United States. By illustrating this Chinese predominance by country with a color, we end up with a red spot which is reminiscent of the book by the former director of the World André Fontaine The Red Spot. The Cold War novel (La Martinière, 2004), who used this image to show the advance of the Soviet bloc and its allies in the 1960s.
Tensions and worries
Finally, the third highlights the Sino-American face-to-face. The planisphere is no longer European-centered, as is often the case in our latitudes, but pacific-centered. Thus, from our point of view, the Earth – as well as the geopolitical stakes – is in the process of accomplishing a rotation, and its center would now move by 180 degrees. China is separated from the United States by the Pacific Ocean, which has become the scene of rivalry between the two powers. Beijing seeks to expand its influence in this huge expanse of water speckled with countless islands, through which passes a third of world trade, while the United States strives to contain its expansion by strengthening its alliances and concentrating its troops more. .
The world has taken hold of this new global geopolitics, the contours of which are gradually taking shape under our troubled eyes by the tensions it arouses in the Indo-Pacific or awakens in Europe, the Middle East and Africa . Without forgetting our concern regarding the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on humanity. Imagine the faces of the new geopolitics in forty maps produced by the computer graphics department of the World, it’s projecting our imagination into a XXIe century which, now well under way, continues to shake up our certainties and question our responsibilities. It is also to refer to our collective heritage of past centuries, which does not intend to be reduced under the blows of the rise of technical progress and other climatic, social or health challenges…
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