From Central Asia to the World: China’s Regional Diplomacy as a Precursor for Global Connectivity

Abstract

During a landmark speech in September 2013 in Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Silk Road Economic Belt; soon afterwards, Xi unveiled the Maritime Silk Road in Indonesia. Together, these came to be known as One Belt One Road (OBOR), or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). BRI was an expansive vision of connectivity predicated on Chinese investments and technology flows, and bulwarked by over a trillion dollars. In this chapter, I argue that the BRI model of global connectivity rested on two regional efforts undertaken by Beijing in the 1990s: (1) China’s multilateral and multidimensional diplomacy with the post-Soviet Central Asian republics—as early as 1994, Beijing’s outreach in Central Asia had been described by Premier Li Peng as a new Silk Road—which resulted, initially, in the Shanghai Five forum in 1996. After 2001, this multilateral diplomacy was famously institutionalized in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Although initially focused on security cooperation, in later years, the SCO became a venue for identifying new economic cooperation, many of which would reappear under BRI. (2) Sustained infrastructure building in the western regions of China. This effort, that began in 1991, and acquired momentum at the end of that decade, was in no small part a result of growing ties between China and Central Asia; now, China’s successful regional diplomacy engendered a more expansive, Eurasia-wide connectivity. Hence, inasmuch as BRI seeks to build a conducive investment climate in Afro-Eurasia along multiple corridors since Xi took power, it builds on China’s regional initiatives since the Cold War.