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Geopolitical Characteristics Of Central Asia And China’s And Russia’s Central Asia Strategies

Posted on:2017-03-01Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:X Y MengFull Text:PDF
GTID:2296330488953376Subject:International politics
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After collapse of the Soviet Union, in the "heartland" of Eurasia appeared five new independent states-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Central Asia located in Mackinder’s "heartland". Its unique geographical location decides that the region has an important geostrategic value. From 1991, the major world powers and neighboring Central Asian countries has been interested in the region.China and Russia-the two important neighboring countries in Central Asia have major interests in this region. Especially in the 21st century, the two countries are actively developing cooperation with Central Asian countries. With China’s "Westward Strategy", Central Asia is increasingly important for China. September 7,2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the idea of building "Silk Road Economic Belt" on the basis of the joint efforts and cooperation, and this idea was proposed in Kazakhstan-a Central Asian country. It means that in this conception, Chinese put Central Asian countries in the first place. Russia has always seen the CIS region as its traditional sphere of influence. Since 2000 Putin came to power, Russia has been looking for opportunities to strengthen its position in the CIS region. With both the EU and NATO’s eastward expansion, many of the CIS countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus region have chosen close to Western Europe. At the end of 2013 after the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, the possibility of Ukraine’s participation in Eurasian integration, which is led by Moscow, virtually is non-existent. Russia is doomed that it will pay more attention on Central Asia.At present, both China and Russia have certain influence on Central Asian countries. Thus, the two countries will inevitably face a conflict of interests in Central Asia. Russian domestic scholars and politicians also have vigilance and suspicion for China that the Chinese are crowding out Russia’s place in its traditional sphere of influence. As two adjacent major world powers, although diplomatic relationship between China and Russia as the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation, and May 8,2015 the two countries signed "the Sino-Russian statement on joint cooperation of constructions of Silk Road economic belt and Eurasian Economic Union", but we should pay great attention to Russia’s domestic suspicions. Even if the general direction of bilateral friendly cooperation in Central Asia will not change in the foreseeable future, a conflict of interests between the two countries emerged in Central Asia may still impede development of bilateral relations and cooperation between China and Central Asian countries.To be optimistic, the cooperation between China and Russia is far greater than the competition. There are a lot of meeting points of interests between the two countries on economy, security and so on. Despite that there are still so many difficulties on joint cooperation of constructions of Silk Road economic belt and Eurasian Economic Union, many scholars even are not optimistic about the prospects for the joint cooperation, but the parties are convinced that cooperation is necessary. On China and Russia’s cooperation in Central Asia, every party is seriously preparing for the negotiation process. I believe the two countries can strengthen communication and coordination, have an honest, correct attitude towards the dispute. Meanwhile, China and Russia should not only take care of each other’s interests, but also respect the views of the Central Asian countries in order to come up with a more reasonable, practical programs and projects to resolve all differences, eliminate doubts, solve problems and achieve cooperation and win-win.In this paper, the historical analysis, comparative research analysis, system analysis, interdisciplinary research methods are used. The purpose of this study is to understand the geopolitical reality of Central Asia, to understand the geopolitical concept and interests of Russia in Central Asia, so that we can more fully consider the issue on the development of Central Asia policy in order to protect the smooth development of cooperation. The innovation of this paper lies in that it will use "polycentrism"-geopolitical theory of well-known American political geographer Saul Cohen as the theoretical basis of this paper to analyze the geopolitical features of Central Asia and China and Russia’s Central Asia strategy and its effects. There are many schools of geopolitical theories. In the analysis of the geopolitical characteristics of specific areas choosing a theory closer to local reality is a key step. In the world the multipolar tendency is increasingly clear today. I believe that "polycentrism" is more in line with the world’s geopolitical realities. But this theory is still less used. Meanwhile, the theory of Russian Eurasianism is as a reference to this article to verify that my analysis is reasonable and feasible or not.
Keywords/Search Tags:Central Asia, geopolitics, China, Russia, strategy
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