... doldrums, Moscow has no choice but to make its strategic partnership with Beijing the lynchpin of its plans to maintain great power status. Russia is but a secondary actor in Asia’s regional order, which casts
significant doubt
on the ability of the EAEU minus Ukraine to become major pole at the global level on its own. But at the same time, failure to mend ties with the West will result in growing dependence on China, thus undermining the very aim that Russia seeks to achieve — preserving its status as an independent great power.
Reimagining great power status
Those adopting a critical view contend that the Kremlin’s great power discourse largely serves a psychological and political purpose, compensating ...
... the fate of being a redundant historical player in the evolution of the Eurasian continent.
Indo-Pacific, Quad, and Containing China
Andrey Kortunov:
SCO: The Cornerstone Rejected by the Builders of a New Eurasia?
The term Indo-Pacific has entered geopolitics ... ... Indo-Pacific to fall under the historical sphere of Indian cultural influence (something like the Indian World, compared to the Russian World), while others suggest including China and even Russia within the construct of the Indo-Pacific. Whatever the case ...
... inter-regional and global structures gravitate towards Eurasia in one way or another. This means that the SCO is still facing institutional competition, albeit in an implicit and relatively mild form. We have already mentioned the SCO’s rivalry with the EAEU, but this is not the only possible scenario.
For example, the BRICS organization (which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is based on the Eurasian triangle of Russia, India and China (the “RIC” part of the acronym). Now that India is a member of the SCO, the latter has come to reproduce, somewhat belatedly, the Eurasian triangle of BRICS; this ...
... countries pursue their national interests, new alliances are emerging and the global order is in a flux. Indian so-called strategic partnership with the U.S is an example in which New Delhi has latched on to Washington’s weakness to contain a rising China and resurgent Russia. In order to gain balance in Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. has formed an axis with India and has sidelined its traditional nuclear non-proliferation goals as a quid pro quo to appease New Delhi. Instead of taking seasoned counsel of the likes of ...
... of areas such as telecommunications, mining, agriculture, and hydropower industry.
Chinese Presence and Eurasian Integration
Russia and China are currently the countries with the strongest political and economic presence in some regions in Central Asia.
Strengthening ... ... directly touches upon perspectives of Eurasian integration, as integration initiatives promoted by Moscow and Beijing, such as EAEU и SREB, are addressed towards economic and political structuring of the neighboring regional space around its own nucleus....
... aimed at diversifying infrastructure away from Russia. The majority of states in the region are now members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) which has its own legal and regulatory base. When investing in Central Asia, China should work within the EAEU framework and conform to its legal and technical standards. As one Russian expert put it, China can provide the economic content to fill the institutional framework provided by the EAEU (Bordachev, 2016). The idea of China promoting its own standards developed by the National Development and Reform Commission in the document ‘Acton Plan ...
... Policy Department of the London Center for European Reform.
On March 28, the RIAC hosted a roundtable with Ian Bond, Director of the Foreign Policy Department of the London Center for European Reform.
I. Bond presented the newly released report "
Russia and China: partners of choice and necessity?
" And two political overviews "
Contested space: Eastern Europe between Russia and the EU
" and "
The EU, the Eurasian Economic Union and One Belt, One Road: Can they work together?
"
...
... experts exchanged opinions on a broad range of international relations issues and discussed prospects for further cooperation.
In addition, Russian delegation visited the CCTV-Russian TV Channel and gave detailed interviews and short comments on the EAEU–SREB co-development, construction of the bridge connecting Blagoveshchensk and Heihe, as well as Russia-China cooperation in sport.
On May 29–30, 2017, RIAC holds the Third International Conference “Russia and China: Taking on a New Quality of Bilateral Relations”. RIAC expects the event to become the next step in strengthening Russia-China ...
