This book addresses the challenges and opportunities of contemporary and future development of Eurasia. The main theme of the first part of the book is examining the reaction evoked in different countries by the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative.” The second part analyses other national and international integration and infrastructure projects in Eurasia. This unique publication brings together in one volume works by leading researchers from different countries, all united by their common interest in the political and economic processes unfolding in the Eurasian continent. By offering various points of view from experts from all over the world, this book provides a multi-dimensional analysis of the Eurasian future and will be of value to a wide range of readers, including scholars, publicists, the international business community and decision-makers.

China's Belt and Road Initiative has become the organizing foreign policy concept of the Xi Jinping era. The 21st-century version of the Silk Road will take shape around a vast network of transportation, energy, and telecommunication infrastructure linking Europe and Africa to Asia. Drawing from the work of Chinese official and analytic communities, China's Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative examines the concept's origins, drivers, and various component parts, as well as China's domestic and international objectives. Nadáege Rolland shows how the Belt and Road Initiative reflects Beijing's desire to shape Eurasia according to its own worldview and unique characteristics. More than a list of revamped infrastructure projects, the initiative is a grand strategy that serves China's vision for itself as the preponderant power in Eurasia and a global power second to none.

Focused on the "Belt and Road Initiative", this book discusses China’s opportunities to translate economic leverage into political outcomes. The central question is how China’s expanding economic influence will transform the Eurasian political landscape. Proposed in late 2013 by President Xi Jinping, the Belt and Road is the most ambitious foreign policy approach adopted thus far and represents the culmination of China’s search for a grand strategic narrative. Comparative methods and diverse conceptual frameworks are applied to contextualize and explore the political, economic, and cultural ramifications of the Belt and Road in order to shed light on its transformative significance, risks and opportunities.

This book is among the first to systematically analyze and discuss the Chinese government's“One Belt, One Road” initiative to promote infrastructure investment and economic development, bringing together a diverse range of scholars from China, Russia, and Eastern Europe. The book assembles a package of next generation ideas for the patterns of regional trade, investment, infrastructure development, or next steps for the promotion of enhanced policy coordination across the Eurasian continent and strategic implications for EU, Russia and other major powers, introducing innovative ideas about what these countries across belt and road can do together in the eyes of the young generation. This book will be of interest to scholars, economists, and interested observers of the international impact of Chinese development.

What does the biggest geopolitical project of our time tell us about China's global ambitions?

This book merges macro- and micro-level analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to dissect China’s aim in creating an integrated Eurasian continent through this single mega-project. BRI has been the source of much interest and confusion, as established frameworks of analysis seek to understand China’s intentions behind the policy. China’s international activity in the early 21st century has not yet been successfully theorised by IR scholars because of a failure to satisfactorily encompass its complexity. In addition, the mix-and-match syncretism of the Chinese approach to foreign policy has been under-emphasised or omitted in many analyses. Bringing together complexity thinking and analytic eclecticism to assess the degree to which this scheme can transform international relations, Garlick critically examines this large-scale interconnectivity project and its potential impacts. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of international relations and China studies including academics, policy-makers and diplomats around the world.

Officially announced by Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has since become the centrepiece of China’s economic diplomacy. It is a commitment to ease bottlenecks to Eurasian trade by improving and building networks of connectivity across Central and Western Asia, where the BRI aims to act as a bond for the projects of regional cooperation and integration already in progress in Southern Asia. But it also reaches out to the Middle East as well as East and North Africa, a truly strategic area where the Belt joins the Road. Europe, the end-point of the New Silk Roads, both by land and by sea, is the ultimate geographic destination and political partner in the BRI. This report provides an in-depth analysis of the BRI, its logic, rationale and implications for international economic and political relations.