Sino-Russian rapprochement and Greater Eurasia: From geopolitical pole to international society?

Abstract

Can international anarchy be stabilized, if not globally, then at least regionally? Those scholars who give a positive answer usually refer to the North Atlantic community which can be categorized as an international society from the viewpoint of the English school. The emergence of such a community outside the West is traditionally considered hardly possible. However, this article argues that it may already be emerging in Eurasia, with Russia and China being the key drivers of this trend. In the past few years, these two powers have put forward a number of major initiatives aimed at developing transport networks and logistics, and deepening economic and institutional ties between different parts of the continent. These include but are not limited to Eurasian Economic Union, supported by Russia, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Together, Moscow and Beijing began to form a new platform for security and economic cooperation “from Kaliningrad to Shanghai”—the community of Greater Eurasia. Based on the analysis of the geopolitical logic of these initiatives, this article suggests that a new, non-Western international society may be forming in Eurasia among the states with different political systems and cultures, but common geopolitical aims and fears.

Eurasia in Russian and Chinese Political Expertise: A Comparative Analysis

“…There is also no consensus in Chinese academic discourse on the geographical framework and political characteristics of the Eurasia region – in general, expert papers can be divided into three types: Eurasia as a post-Soviet space, Eurasia as a space for implementing China’s cooperation with the EAEU, and Eurasia as a realisation space for Chinese political and economic integration projects, including the Silk Road project. Nevertheless, the clear articulation of the concept and linking the term Eurasia to the EAEU and Belt and Road projects reinforces earlier assertions by researchers (Lukin & Novikov, 2021) that, while Russian scholars substitute the term Eurasia for the geopolitical concept of ‘Greater Eurasia’ and attribute rather vague geographical characteristics to the concept as a whole, Chinese internationalists associate the concept of Eurasia with the rather specific aforementioned foreign policy and foreign economic projects.…”

“…However, we assume that this limitation may be neglected for two reasons. First, the political viewpoints, expressed by these experts, closely correlate with other Chinese authors from the corresponding think tanks; another reason is that the sample contains other major figures in Chinese expertise, such as Li (2017a) and Li (2020), whose perspectives on the future of the Greater Eurasia project were closely analysed in a recent work of Lukin and Novikov (2021). Bearing these constrains of the research design in mind, we thus save room for further research of the Chinese and Russian political expertise including the implementation of other qualitative methods and widening the sample of papers included in the research.…”

Forging a New Security Order in Eurasia: China, the SCO, and the Impacts on Regional Governance

“…In recent years, Russian and Chinese efforts in creating synergies between the SCO, the CSTO, the SREB, and the EAEU represent an attempt to form a Greater Eurasian Community that could evolve into a non-Western international society. It is clear that both Beijing and Moscow see the benefits of forming such a community to protect their core interests and bank on the region's rich natural resources and economic potential to further their power and influence in what both are pushing for: the transition from a unipolar to multipolar world (Lukin and Novikov 2021). In many aspects, the SCO's evolution and Beijing's investment in the organization, over time have fostered a regional security community in that member states share certain values embodied in the "Shanghai Spirit", such as respect for sovereignty, non-interference in international affairs, states' critical role in coordinating responses to non-traditional security challenges, promote mutual trust between members, and efforts toward peaceful management of disputes (Lanteigne 2006(Lanteigne , 2007MacHaffie 2021).…”

From “Greater Europe” to “Greater Eurasia”: Status concerns and the evolution of Russia’s approach to alignment and regional integration

“…The consolidation of Greater Eurasia would allow the international system to overcome American unipolar dominance and allow for the construction of a more equitable, just, and representative international order based on the principles of sovereignty, non-interference, and the right of each society to choose its own social system and path of development (Lewis, 2018) According to Lukin and Novikov's (2021) article in this volume, Russia now believes that inviting China and other emerging powers into what has previously been its backyard actually serves its economic interest. It will help in developing the Russian Far East and give Russia access to Asian markets where it can sell its agricultural and manufacturing goods, helping the Russian economy diversify away from its current dependence on natural resource exports.…”

“…However, its regional ambitions serve concrete political and economic objectives: maintaining stability on its Western periphery (which could spill over into China's Western provinces such as Xinjiang), the economic development of these less developed western provinces, the productive use of its excess capital and construction capacity, and securing new trade routes and sources of natural resources so that it is less reliant on international shipping lanes (which the U.S. Navy could cut off from in any future conflict) (Ferdinand, 2016). The Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation that China signed with the EAEU in 2018 is more of a statement of intentions and stops short of establishing any clearly defined obligations from the Chinese side (Lukin & Novikov, 2021). China shies away from the anti-Western tendencies that are inherent in Russian visions of the project.…”