BRI in the Middle East and Central Asia

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The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) connects the People’s Republic of China (PRC) mainly by road and maritime transport routes to the European Union (EU) through Central Asia, the Middle East, and adjacent waterways. As the Initiative continues to grow, it positions the PRC at the center of the largest concentration of the world’s population, capital, labor production potential, energy, trade, and investment and financial funds that will inevitably increase China’s overall geopolitical importance. Through the BRI, China has designed a long-term economic strategy of new external relations to promote stable economic growth and development among participants and the involved neighboring countries. This work studies three key countries in the middle section of the overland connection between China and the EU: Iran and Turkey in the Middle East and Kazakhstan in Central Asia. These three countries are crucial for the success of the BRI. Each has a substantial population and/or a sizable territorial expanse. Iran and Kazakhstan belong to the world’s key hydrocarbon-rich countries. Turkey and Iran have relatively diversified industries, and both are militarily active beyond their state borders. The diverse external policy orientations of Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkey (among other countries involved in the BRI) have established regional networks for cooperation on the BRI. Numerous studies and publications on the origin, nature, and activities of the BRI exist and continue to grow, however, empirical studies on the opportunities and challenges for each of the countries along the BRI remain relatively underdeveloped. The objective of this work is to fill in that gap by expanding investigations of the BRI’s economic activities (namely trade, investment, and finance) in Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkey through a comparative case study. We argue that the BRI provides new opportunities for Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkey to develop their economies. The realization of Chinese energy and infrastructure projects in developed as well as underdeveloped (sub)regions is creating a foundation on which other Chinese companies can develop and extend their global value chains and/or cooperate with local companies, potentially leading toward the integration of the Eurasian economies and related industries, with China at its center. However, the process of deepening diplomatic and economic relations between China and the Middle East, Central Asia, and particularly our cases is not without problems. The main challenges the BRI faces are related to domestic political (in)stability and the geopolitical economy. China is able to mobilize all Middle Eastern and Central Asian states in the context of its BRI projects, which is the main concern for the United States, leading to a deeper rift between the two that is set to become the main geopolitical reality of the region. Simultaneously, the opportunity to cooperate with China, and therefore balance against the US hegemony as a “counter-hegemonic state”, is one of the attractive forces for states in these two regions.