BRI in Central Asia: People-to-People Projects (original) (raw)

China's Belt and Road Initiative through the lens of Central Asia

Routledge, 2019

Has the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013, changed the perception of China among local actors in Central Asia? There are numerous internal problems and contradictions among the Central Asian countries and the region remains one of the least integrated in the world. This poses serious challenges to BRI but also offers opportunities for enhancing regional connectivity and integration. Although there has been some research and even more media coverage of BRI, little is known about how Central Asians perceive BRI. This chapter fills some of these gaps and analyzes the present state of relations between the Central Asian countries and China and collects and systematizes perceptions of Beijing and BRI among Central Asian stakeholders. The analysis focuses on economic cooperation, infrastructure and educational initiatives, as they as they are among BRI's main pillars. The main conclusion is that current attitudes towards China have been formed within the framework of bilateral relations that started in 1991, and there has so far been no major shift in the perception of China in Central Asia since BRI was launched. Whereas the broader public expects more economic opportunities from BRI and there has been more discussion of China's role in Central Asia after 2013, local communities remain uninformed and weakly connected to the high-level interaction between the Chinese and Central Asian governments.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Implications for Central Asia

Izquierdo-Brichs F., Serra-Mansalvador F. (eds) Political Regimes and Neopatrimonialism in Central Asia. The Steppe and Beyond: Studies on Central Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapure., 2021

Launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) constitutes so far, the most complex, controversial, and far-reaching project put forth by a major power in the contemporary era. The BRI attempts to build an interconnected network of maritime and land-based economic routes, running from the Western Pacific to the Baltic Sea by putting forward "hard" and "soft" infrastructure projects. This chapter sheds light on the implications of the BRI in Central Asia by analyzing the economic, security, and political rationale driving the initiative in the region and exploring the linkages between the BRI and the agenda of Central Asian elites in terms of power consolidation and regime's political stability.

Belt and Road Initiative's Economic Impact on Central Asia. The Cases of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Handbook on BRI, 2022

The cooperation between China and the Central Asian republics, particularly as it relates to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Central Asia, has become a highly discussed subject in the region. Despite this, there is not much research discussing the impact of the BRI on the economies of the Central Asian countries. It is evident that Central Asia is the most important region for China in terms of economic, security, and social issues. The landbound leg of the BRI is the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), which passes through Central Asia before reaching its desired destinations, making the region critical to China's goals for the BRI (Yazdani, 2020, p. 189). Central Asia thus forms a key component of the BRI (Dilleen, 2017), and many works discuss the reasons behind the importance of Central Asia for China. According to some scholars, Central Asia is valuable to China because of the region's energy and mineral resources (Duarte, 2019, p. 167; Garlick, 2020, p. 7; Sim & Aminjonov, 2020, p. 21). Central Asia's geographical and cultural proximity to China's restive Xinjiang also informs Beijing's focus on these states (Sim & Aminjonov, 2020, p. 22). Since the introduction of the BRI in 2013, all cooperation projects and any cooperation between China and other nations have been related to BRI projects. According to Aminjonov et al. (2019, p. 1), projects are regarded as part of the BRI if they meet the criteria of being publicly reported as a BRI project, regardless of whether projects are fully or partially financed by the BRI financial institutions, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of China or New Silk Road Fund, or are implemented and financed via a bilateral or multilateral format. The BRI provides opportunities for Central Asia in return for its use as a gateway connecting China with West Asia and Europe, namely through enabling the building of infrastructure with China's financial assistance, thereby reducing logistics costs, expanding trade, and attracting

PROSPECTS FOR CHINA'S BRI AND STRATEGIC INFLUENCE IN THE POST-COVID-19 CENTRAL ASIA

Przegląd Strategiczny, 2021

COVID-19 has put a significant strain on the Central Asian economies. Experts believe that the economic impact of the Pandemic could last longer than its direct health impact in the region. Besides internal weaknesses in its economic structure including low level of diversification and greater dependence over commodity and remittances, COVID-19 is a consequential externality for Central Asian economies with profound impact on its long-term economic planning and decision making. Rapid recovery from the economic slowdown is likely to stay as the priority in the post-Pandemic Central Asia which means greater inclination towards long-term economic projects like China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China's BRI is a $1.4 trillion ambitious economic venture connecting Beijing to Europe through Central Asia and encourages regional countries to improve economic integration through regional connectivity. It helps China to actively demonstrate its transformation from a rule-taker to a potential rule-maker with greater role in global trade and governance. For China, BRI is part of its strategy to "stabilize in the east, gain strength in the north, descend to the south, and advance to the west." China's rapid defeat of the COVID-19 at home and phenomenal revival of its economic ascend amidst the pandemic encourages Beijing's efforts to extend support to the Central Asian countries and accelerate its progress over the landmark projects of BRI. Central Asia, often tagged as the 'Buck of the Belt', holds crucial significance to BRI as the major transport corridor to lucrative markets like West Asia, Russia, and the European Union, in addition to its utility as a rich destination of natural resources. The region, which shares authoritarian values with the PRC, offers China the opportunity to use Central Asia as a 'strategic home-front', exploit its natural resources, and defend itself from the three evils threatening China's national interests i.e. terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Therefore, besides economic benefits, BRI improves China's strategic position in the region and serves to advance its vital strategic and political objectives. On the other hand, BRI improves Central Asia's regional trade, connectivity, and overhauls its obsolete transport infrastructure. It helps the region to attract investment, improve job creation, and facilitate technology transfer to improve social welfare and accelerate economic growth in the region. Therefore, the growing economic uncer