The Rise of Chinese Eurasianism

Eurasian Integration and China's BRI: Opportunities and Challenges, 2019

The idea of Eurasian integration has come up as a strategic goal of major powers in recent years. Russia's Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the European Union's (EU) Eastern Partnership Program (EPP) with the objective of expanding a sphere of influence and China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to create economic integration through transportation infrastructure and trade are three major strategies for this purpose. This study highlights that China's growing presence in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is a clear indicator of its growing influence. Therefore, the article aims to appraise China's rise in Eastern Europe through its BRI and Eurasian integration strategy. Secondly, it presents a comparative analysis of multiple Eurasian integration strategies. Through a prism of "New Regionalism Theory," this study delves into exploring the factors behind China's effort to create regional integration in the whole Eurasia. The findings of the study show that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a unique idea in the sense that it aims at not only the integration of geographically adjacent regions but also creating physical connections in faraway regions. This convergence will not only bring more financial opportunities for the regional states but also manifest a great probability for China's emergence as the greatest Eurasian power.

Kennan Cable No. 40, 2019

2021

Russia and China surrounding Eurasia, realizing Halford Mackinder‘s Heartland theory by integrating the Eurasian landmass. Economic, political and strategic complementarities between Russia and China plus geography are the integrative forces compelling both the powers to accommodate each other‘s interests and provide indispensable benefits to each other in the context of Eurasian integration. By developing both the components of cross border connectivity infrastructure i.e. hardware (Roads, Railways, Pipelines, Ports) as well as software (harmonization and coordination of policies, regulations) the dyad is turning the 21st Century into ―Eurasian Century‖. Historically, with the inventions of maritime (Sea lanes of Communication) transportation, the power shifted to Sea powers(West) as they controlled the main transportation routes. The development and hence control over the transportation routes over Eurasia will result into a power shift from Sea powers to land powers (Russia & Chi...

The argument that a crisis in Russian-Chinese relations is unavoidable has been repeatedly referred to by analysts since the 1990s. The reason for this crisis would be geopolitical competition between the two powers in Central Asia. In 2013, China's President Xi Jinping announced the concept of the New Silk Road (referred to by the Chinese side as 'One Belt, One Road'). At the same time, Moscow announced its efforts to build its own integration project in the form of the Eurasian Economic Union. These two developments seemed to confirm that the initial argument was correct and that the two projects were apparently fated to compete. Meanwhile, in May 2015, during President Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow, a joint declaration was issued calling for combining the two projects and creating a formal mechanism for their coordination in the form of a joint task force. The vision of " a great Eurasian partnership " announced by President Vladimir Putin during the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on 16–17 June 2016 – which he also referred to as the Greater Eurasia project – is a signal that Moscow has ultimately opted for the strategy of joining a stronger partner (bandwagoning) instead of choosing the strategy of counterbalancing the rising power of China. At the same time, Moscow is trying to conceal the growing asymmetry in Russian-Chinese relations.

Journal of Eurasian Studies

This paper argues that Russia's strategic objective of developing its Asiatic regions is tied to its serious intentions in Asia as a whole. It stresses that Russia can only connect to the political, economic, and cultural life of Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific through its own Asian regions. Moreover, leaders' claims that Russia belongs to both Europe and Asia will carry little weight with their Asiatic neighbors if Russia's own Asiatic regions remain underdeveloped and subject to shrinking populations. The paper critically analyzes the results of various projects of development of Asiatic Russia beginning from late tsarist period until the 21st century and shows that Russia needs to put forward a formal strategy for developing the Eurasian infrastructure that is comparable to the SREB, Kazakhstan's NurlyZhol (Bright Path) economic stimulus plan, Mongolia's Steppe Road, and others. This strategy should reflect Russia's objectives for the economic development of its own Asiatic regions, and through them, the co-development with its neighbors of Eurasia generally. It argues that the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development, put forward by several Russia think tanks, could become Russia's contribution to the development of the Eurasian space and mesh with the Chinese, Kazakh, Mongolian, and other partner initiatives. Its implementation would help spur the economic development of Asiatic Russia, enabling that region to become part of the larger economic development of Eurasia. That would help turn Russia into a more important independent and constructive player in the Eurasian space, acting in close coordination with its partners in both the East and the West.

World Affairs Journal, 2020

Throughout history, Eurasia has been central to relations between Europe and Asia. It has been the crossroads of civilisations, contributing to the cultural and ethnic hybridity of the region. However, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and later the Soviet Union in the twentieth century, Eurasia lost its geostrategic importance in the US led liberal world order. In the 1920s, a group of Russian émigrés described the cultural and ethnic ties among the communities living across the vast Eurasian steppes as Eurasianism. Eurasianists divide the world into two opposing forces with Eurasianism including Russia and the European states favouring integration with it and Atlanticism including the US and European countries supporting an American led Atlantic order. Today, Russia is an important revisionist power in Eurasia, with huge stakes in the global order and the capability to help forge new relationships in the region.

This article is about geopolitical strategic analyze of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “Eurasian Union” strategy from Chinese viewpoint. The article describes historical background of Eurasian Union, its geopolitical purposes, achievements and weakness, particularly from China's national strategic design and stance of Central Asia in Eurasian Continent. The geopolitical analysis of possibility for Sino-Russian Alliance and realistic difficulties of it are provided. Different point of Chinese experts on Russia-West relations are given. Some of them believe that the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War revival in the CIS, its purpose is to play as geopolitical blunders against the Western countries under the leadership of NATO, IMF and the United States. While others, take into consideration the US-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and Russia’s actively participation in the former Group of Eight, accession to WTO and other initiatives that indicates the current Moscow is not the Soviet Union, and does not exclude cooperation with existing international system dominated by the Western world. And finally, China's own Eurasian strategy design is represented, especially China’s foreign policy options on Central Asia as solutions to some current existing geopolitical differences between China and Russia’s own Eurasian Strategy in order to achieve mutual win-set goal.

European Politics and Society, 2016

The research of Eurasian regionalism mostly focuses on the Eurasian core, e.g. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, which have been pursuing a more exclusive and closer form of integration-Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union. Other countries of the post-Soviet space are often described as post-Soviet 'escapists' or 'isolationists' and mostly discounted in the analyses of the Eurasian regionalism. The paper looks at six post-Soviet states, who opted out from the Eurasian Economic Union, and analyse their interaction with the EEU. The paper argues that despite tensions in relations with Russia, most of these countries are reluctant to entirely disrupt their economic relations with the post-Soviet Eurasia. The paper argues that six countries of the post-Soviet Eurasian periphery effectively pursue policies of a looser form association with the Eurasian core. This finding allows to argue that Eurasian regionalism, similarly to its European model, consists of the core and outer circle. The outer circle is featured by overlapping regional arrangements and growing presence of external powers and growing number of transit and trade flows linking this Eurasian periphery with the West and Asia.

The Chinese Journal of Global Governance, 2019

The Belt and Road Initiative alongside the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are the latest phase of China’s return to the Eurasian landmass after the collapse of the Soviet Union. China has reshaped Eurasia in several ways, which includes the common definition of this concept, which had largely been perceived as a chiefly Russian entity. This is rooted in Halford Mackinder’s The Geographical Pivot of History, which depicted the Eurasian landmass as a threat to Britain’s maritime hegemony with the advent of rail. While the traditional focus had been on Eurasia as the Russian empire, Mackinder also alluded to a Eurasian empire created by ‘Chinese organised by Japanese’ as a result of the latter’s development during the Meiji Restoration. While this did not come to pass, it has become an imperative to consider the notion of an Asian power in Eurasia due to China’s rise. The purpose of this paper is to argue that China is as much a Eurasian power in the vein of Mackinder’s theories as ...

The Return of Eurasia