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This handbook analyses the impact of China's Belt and Road geostrategy in Eurasia. Over the last decade the BRI helped bring China economic and political superpower status, but the Russo-Ukrainian war brought seismic geopolitical and geoeconomic impacts.
List of contents
PART I 1. Introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Eurasian Continent
PART II: Silk Road Economic Belt 2.
Rebuilding Eurasian Interconnectivity: China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor 3. Evolution of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor: Weighing functionality and rhetoric 4. Explaining the Belt and Road Initiative: A Case Study of the New Eurasian Land Bridge Economic Corridor 5. Understanding Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor in the Era of Multipolar World Order 2.0: Perspectives from Bangladesh 6. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Multipolar World Order 2.0: Perspectives from India
7. China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor and Lancang-Mekong Sub-Regional Cooperation in the Era of Multipolar World Order 2.0
PART III: Digital and Space Silk Roads 8. The security dimension of the Digital Silk Road: from Netpolitik to Digitalpolitik 9.
Sino-Russian Cybersecurity Cooperation in a Multipolar World Order: Implications for the Digital Silk Road 10. China's Starry Constellations with Russia and the Global South: The Space Silk Road Analysed
PART IV: Environmental Governance and Critical Raw Materials 11. The Environmental Governance of China's Belt and Road Initiative 12. Belt and Road Initiative's impact on Critical Raw Materials in Eurasia: The case of the EU
PART V: Geopolitical Dynamics 13.
Unpacking Chinese Communication about the Belt and Road Initiative: Moral Realist Project in a World Order 2.0 14. China's Belt and Road Initiative and the US Indo-Pacific Strategy: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis 15. From Obama to Biden: The United States Position on BRI under the "China Threat" Narrative
PART VI: Central Asia and the Russian Far East 16. Multipolarity, the Rise of China, and Kazakhstan's Emergence as a Middle Power 17. The Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia: Opportunities and Challenges for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan 18. India and China in Central Asia: Neither Rivalry nor Collaboration 19. Social Innovation Projects in Belt and Road Initiative Countries: Case Studies of Uzbekistan and China 20. Chinese Investment in the Russian Far East: Problems and Prospects
PART VII: South Caucasus 21
. Beyond the West-Russia Dichotomy: Case Studies on the Hedging Strategies of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia 22. The International North-South Transport Corridor and the Belt and Road Initiative in the South Caucasus
PART VIII: Middle East 23
. The Belt and Road Initiative and China-GCC Relations: Strategic Partnerships in a Multipolar World Order 2.0 24. Prospects for New Infrastructure Cooperation between China and the Gulf Countries Under the Belt and Road Initiative 25
. Iran's Look East Policy and the Energy Silk Road: The Energy Partnership of Iran and China 26. Navigating the Silk Road in Central and Eastern Europe
PART IX: Europe 27. Towards a Shared Future: Upgrade of Strategic Partnership between China and Serbia within the BRI framework 28
. Rethinking Italy-China Cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative: The Communication's Impact in the Italian Case Study
PART X: Conclusion 29
. Conclusion: A Research and Policy Agenda for the Belt and Road Initiative
About the author
Mher D. Sahakyan is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He is the founding director of the ChinäEurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research in Armenia. Mher was an AsiaGlobal Fellow at the Asia Global Institute of the University of Hong Kong (2020/21 and 2022). He was a 2024 LEWI Visiting Fellow at the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. Mher holds a doctorate in international relations from China's Nanjing University. He is the editor of
Routledge Handbook of Chinese and Eurasian International Relations and
China and Eurasian Powers in Multipolar World Order 2.0: Security, Diplomacy, Economy and Cybersecurity, which Routledge published in 2024 and 2023.
Kevin Lo is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Acting Director of the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies of Hong Kong Baptist University. He has a PhD in Geography from the University of Melbourne. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the
Journal of Asian Energy Studies, an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to interdisciplinary research on all aspects of energy studies in Asia. He has won several major competitive grants from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and has published in many leading journals, including
Global Environmental Change,
Political Geography,
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,
Energy Policy,
Energy for Sustainable Development,
Environmental Science & Policy,
Cities,
Habitat International, and
Journal of Rural Studies.
