Routledge Handbook of China's Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia

Description

This handbook critically analyses and examines the impact of China’s Belt and Road (BRI) 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 and a new struggle between great powers. Covering the impact of the BRI and the positions of other great, middle, and small powers, the ten parts explain the geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics along the Silk Road Economic Belt’s six major economic corridors, implementing case studies on Europe, South Caucasus, Central Asia, Russian far East, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.

Expert scholars from East, West, North, and South engage with newer BRI concepts, such as the Digital Silk Road, the Green BRI, and the Space Silk Road, to create a book that will be of interest to policymakers, businesspeople, scholars, and students of area studies, cybersecurity and digitalization, economics, security studies, the politics of international trade, area studies, foreign policy, global governance, and international organizations.

Editor(s)

Biography

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 China‑Eurasia 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.

Critics' Reviews

"Amid geographically non-congruous arrangements gaining traction as a way of readjusting to the evolving power transition in the world, the Belt and Road Initiative continues to be a bellwether of ‘reglobalisation’. In its avatar 3.0, this ‘project of the century’ continues to encompass more than it old and new economic value, along with cultural, political, space, and security dynamics. The Routledge Handbook of China’s Belt and Road Inititiative in Eurasia demonstrates well how the Initiative facilitates the transformation of Asia into Eurasia and beyond, thus making this a multinetworked and multialigned ecosystem. It also underlines the BRI’s relevance as a global phenomenon despite the new political realities in the United States and the noise about China’s economic slowdown. Finally, in an era of ‘corridorisation’, the Handbook contributors reinforce the mantra: “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.”

- Dr Narayanappa Janardhan, Director, Research and Analysis, Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, Abu Dhabi

"Dr. Mher D. Sahakyan and Dr. Kevin Lo united scholars from different parts of the world to present all voices from East, West, North, and South. The authors analyzed the Belt and Road Initiative’s corridors, providing recommendations on the further development of the initiative. The authors have introduced case studies on Central Asia, the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Europe, and other regions to bring facts in detail. Among the key topics of the Routledge Handbook of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia, authors are chapters on the Digital and Space Silk Road, environmental Governance, and Critical Raw Materials. Authors’ interviews with practitioners and scholars from different Eurasian states also bring credibility to this work.

According to his study, the Belt and Road Initiative in a Eurasian continent under a Multipolar World Order 2.0 is an essential building blok, and it will be more crucial to global geopolitics, peace, and development. As this study suggests, China and Eurasian countries can utlise opportunities and resolve the challenges within and beyond the BRI. In my opinion, the features of this new Handbook are consistent with the substances of the conjunction of global initiatives, which brings additional opportunities for further research.

There is no doubt that in a Multipolar World Order 2.0 the Routledge Handbook of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia, which represents the collaboration among and beyond Eurasian academic boundaries or nationalities, will provide scholarly welfare and inspiration for global readers, bringing new ideas and research."

- Zheng Yuntian (Professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, director of the World Socialism Institute in RUC)

Routledge Handbook of China's Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia

Description

Table of Contents

Editor(s)

Biography

Critics' Reviews

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