... outcome as the European Union in more than a decade of negotiations), the Chinese decision to launch such an agreement with Tbilisi is therefore probably not a coincidence. Located at the crossroads between Asia, Europe, and the Middle-East, Georgia is China’s gateway to the European and Russian markets, while its Belt and Road Initiative (formerly known as OBOR) aims to connect the continents to increase trade. In this context, and although not constituting official axes of the new silk roads, several ...
... in Central Asia may seem more likely when it comes to Russia and China. Many experts argue that the tensions between the West and Russia over Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine have pushed Russia towards the East, including towards China. Russia and China have already formally aligned themselves by linking up the EAEU to the BRI. For Russia, the alignment of the BRI with the EAEU fits within the so-called Greater Eurasian Partnership that Russia aspires to create and which includes the BRI as part of a network of integration initiatives that together would form ...
The Working Group on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations’ Report
Central Asia stands out as a comparatively “nontoxic” region where there are limited, but not insignificant, opportunities for U.S.-Russia collaboration both bilaterally and within multilateral frameworks: in the space industry, civil security, job-creation mechanisms and rural human capital, and knowledge sharing for instance. Any proposal of U.S.-Russia cooperation in a concrete domain will have to be made in a tri- or-multipartite...
... 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 ...
... Malaysia
expressed its dissatisfaction
with the terms of its deal on the Silk Road Economic Belt. The experience of Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries that signed memorandums on the Silk Road Economic Belt over five years ago shows that exports to China have not increased several times over. What is more, the transport routes did not connect the EAEU as countries of the Union had hoped. And the thousands of new jobs that had been promised to the citizens of Central Asian states never materialized.
The lack of transparent rules of the game. Dumping. The use of “grey” practices by Chinese companies....
... rather destiny.
Second, only Europe can serve as an effective motor for Russian economic and social modernization. Russia already has aggregate scientific-technological potential that, for all practical intents and purposes, has, with the exception of China, no real match in Asia for the foreseeable future. Even more importantly, Europe is genuinely interested in Russia’s technological market, which could well serve as a catalyst for the continent’s own technological and economic development. (By ...
... rather than “road maps,” within the framework of the plan to align the Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union, including planned joint projects under the Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the EAEU.
7. Increase the share of hi-tech products and machinery in China–Russia trade and optimize the structure of this trade.
8. Work together to expand the openness of the Chinese and Russian markets and increase agricultural trade and the exchange ...
... two projects are in no way fully compatible. In the end, there can be only one winner, and the loser shall be relegated to 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 via biogeography, which studies the patterns of geographical distribution and the distribution of animals, plants, and ...
... 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 ...
... transport and other services in the areas of trade and economic cooperation”.
Anna Kuznetsova:
Greater Eurasia: Perceptions from Russia, the European Union, and China
Let’s look at some of these claims in more detail.
Firstly, there is little sign that China considers the EAEU as a serious partner. Instead, it prefers to deal with EAEU members on an individual basis. For example, the official Chinese
documentation
for the May 2017 Belt and Road Forum hardly mentioned the EAEU, even though there were many mentions of other ...
