FIRST FOREIGN POLICY OUTCOMES OF IMPLEMENTING THE CHINESE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE IN EURASIA

10.31857/S032150750009541-7

Yury V. KULINTSEV
Research Fellow, North-East Asia Strategic Issues and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Center, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

   The article poses the question of how beneficial the Chinese strategic Belt and Road Initiative appears to be in the first run during 2013-2019. Drawing on the general description of the Initiative’s core principles and components, the author then makes an attempt to emphasize advantages and drawbacks of its potential implementation with a special focus on interrelations between China and proposed partners to the BRI. Central Asia and Russia are, thus, put under the microscope as the neighboring states having no other way but to interact with China as the unequivocal rising economic and geopolitical power. The author examines overlapping spheres of interest for China and these countries to shed a light on future perspectives of proclaimed “equal cooperation for all”. The model of the Chinese behavior and the country’s capacity for dialog are considered through the lens of the “EAEU-Silk Road” integration project.

   The end of the first stage of the BRI is characterized by the International Forum of High Level on Belt and Road Initiative held in Beijing in 2017. The Chinese government has referred to it as to the one of the main international events of the years. The fact that the BRI has the solid cultural and civilization basis has become the key specialty of the initiative. The prompt about the historical role of the participant countries in the development of the Ancient Silk Road becomes the powerful factor for the consolidation of states with such different level of economic potentials and political systems such as Central Asian countries, China and Pakistan. With this regard Beijing stands not only as an economic, but also as an «ideological» leaderб who offers his own decision to solve regional problems.