Suchergebnisse

"This Whitehall Paper is an examination of China's relations over its western borders, looking at the interplay between China's relations with South and Central Asia, and its relations with other great adjacent powers. Based on a two-year research project that included travel and workshops in South and Central Asia, this Paper examines Beijing's changing impact and relationship with its near neighbourhood. Conceived prior to the announcement of Xi Jinping's 'Belt and Road Initiative' research for this report was undertaken in the shadow of the September 2013 announcement and the 'Belt and Road' ultimately proved to be the driving framework under which this report was drafted. The report sketches out the roots of the initiative, and how it is being felt on the ground, exploring in detail how it is being received in China's immediate neighbourhood where its impact is most significant for China."--Provided by publisher.

The Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) initiative, launched by Xi Jinping in 2013 as the Central Asian component of the Eurasian Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is presented as a trade and infrastructural developmental initiative that benefits all to deliver stability. It consolidates Beijing's existing economic investments and security-building measures, while launching new projects to link the regions of Central Asia and South Asia more closely with China and extend the arc of security westward and develop these as a transport corridor linking China to Europe. This article examines the interaction between China's infrastructural investments and security dynamics in the Central Asian region, exploring why the BRI/SREB, presented by China as primarily as a developmental vision, is fraught with wide-ranging security implications. We examine the reception of China's BRI/SREB in Central Asia focusing on the following three dimensions: (1) the lure of Chinese investments which makes SREB particularly attractive for Central Asian countries; (2) the securitization thrust of the Silk Road initiative which consolidates the power of the Central Asian regimes but also grants considerable role to China in managing security arrangements; (3) elite maneuvering between the lure of Chinese investments and appeasing popular anxieties about China's growing influence. It points to the overall positive reception in the region to the aid and investment offered by China, while noting the variance in their responses based on the implications of SREB for their sovereignty and security and also concerns on whether the promised benefits of connectivity and development (a "win-win" scenario) will materialize. The article concludes by outlining the implications of China's rising economic and security engagement in Central Asia and the close Sino-Russian partnership for European financial and security interests and highlights the areas of cooperation and complementarity between China and EU in the region.

The present article sees as the most important political-economic development in China in the year 2015 the fulfilment of the first phase of a gargantuan political-economic project: the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, known also as the «One Belt, One Road» (OBOR) initiative. This project, launched by the Chinese government in 2013, was institutionalized in a programmatic document in 2015. Therefore, the present article analyses the OBOR initiative from several different perspectives. First, the Silk Road project is presented as the current phase of a long-term political-economic strategy aimed at internationalizing the Chinese state-owned and private enterprises. Then, the article examines the OBOR's programmatic official document, published during the year under review, and goes on to explore the OBOR's geographic extension and its implementation. Finally, the article deals with the OBOR's main financial mechanism, known as the Asian Infra-structure Investment Bank, and with the Western countries' divided reactions when confronted with the opportunity to become founding members of this new China-led multilateral financial institution.