A Comparative Study Of China's And Japan's Economic And Trade Strategies Towards Central Asia From The View Of Geoeconomics

From the view of geoeconomics,Central Asia,with its unique geographic location has an important geostrategic value for China.However,the dilemmas,such as complicated geopolitical condition,the large gap between economic development and the competition between great powers,make the regional development difficult?It is necessary to cooperate with each other for the purpose of regional integration?With continuous development,especially the innovation in China,competition is not the only manifestation of geoeconomics.Mutually beneficial cooperation has gradually become the goal of development.The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is also an implementation of China's cooperative geoeconomic theory.As big regional powers,China and Japan should take the responsibilities for cooperation under the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration.Since 2017,Japan has changed its attitude toward the Belt and Road Initiative and instead expressed willingness to cooperate with China in public.Cooperation in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative has become a heated subject now.Although the geopolitical condition of Central Asia is complicated and the contradictions between China and Japan are prominent,there are still common interests between China and Japan,especially in the area of economy and trade.This paper tries to explore the possibility of cooperation for mutual benefit between China and Japan on the base of the comparison and analysis of their own economic and trade strategies in Central Asia.Before analyzing the economic and trade strategies in Central Asia,this paper first explores the deep-seated considerations of China and Japan from the perspective of the geoeconomic in order to better understand the similarities and differences between their strategies.On the one hand,the unique geographic location,rich resource reserves and complex cultures of Central Asian countries lead to a slow economic development,a wide gap between countries and a single economic structure,which attracted the great powers to participate the construction of the region.On the other hand,China and Japan also have their different geoeconomic interests in the Central Asia.Under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative,China's economic and trade strategies towards Central has been focused on strengthening energy cooperation,increasing trade and investment,and making full use of platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.Japan has paid close attention on promoting energy diversification by using technological advantages,developing economic and trade relationship through ODA,and strengthening conversation by the "Central Asia Plus Japan" dialogue mechanism.Then the paper tries to compare their strategies.In terms of strategic basis for decision-making,the consumption structure and market demand of China are more complementary to those in Central Asian.And the economic and trade strategies of two countries have different focuses.Japan aims at geopolitical ideals while China emphasizes economic cooperation as its goal.What's more,the paper also made a comparison between the SCO and the"Central Asia Plus Japan" dialogue.Both of them promote the cooperation,even though they have different measures.In the aspect of strategic practice,the data can show that the economic and trade scale between China and Central Asian is larger than that of Japan,but there are also problems,for example the imbalance of investment structure.Also,both China and Japan have similarities in the trade structure and growth trend of transactions.The paper also explores the competition between the economic and trade strategies of China and Japan to Central Asia,and the possibility of cooperation between them under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.In the areas such as trade,investment,energy and mechanism,they have conflicts due to the inherent geoeconomical factors.However,for both of them,cooperation is the best choice.By the comparison of their economic and trade strategies,we can see that the two countries have their own strengths infrastructure construction,finance,and environmental protection which means they can achieve mutual benefit through mutual complementarity.As big powers in the world,China and Japan have great responsibilities on building a community of shared future for mankind.We hope that the Belt and Road Initiative can become a new driving force and new platform for economic cooperation between the two countries.Thus they can cooperate on the basis of the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration,and are commit to the harmonious and stable development of regional economy.