Abstract
COVID-19 brings a momentous decline for global economic activities but its consequences for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) remains imminent. Despite the economic shocks of the Pandemic, BRI remains a top priority for China which allows Beijing to improve regional connectivity and expand its economic outreach far off to Europe and the American shores. On the other hand, the Central Asian economies are hard hit by the pandemic with a reduced regional trade, decline in oil prices and its commodities, deep slump in remittances, and the slackening manufacturing ability. The revival of BRI and its immediate success is desirable to the COVID-19 hit Central Asian economies. This is because BRI has bound the region together in terms of infrastructural development where China, under the rubric of BRI, is spearheading major developmental projects, pouring investment in energy sector, offering debt, and improving bilateral trade with regional economies. For this reason, the Central Asian countries desire immediate revival of close economic cooperation which could links the economic fortunes of regional countries to Beijing and brings the BRI to the fore in regional priorities. The paper highlight the impact of COVID-19 over Central Asian economies, the significance BRI for the region; its geopolitical importance for China; and the growing Chinese influence in the post-Pandemic Central Asia using Bourdieu’s Theory of Symbolic Power. Finally, using qualitative content analysis, the paper argues that the economic impact of COVID-19 are short-term and of limited nature and it will only increase prospects for BRI in the post-Pandemic Central Asia with vital strategic utilities for China’s geopolitical profile in the region.
Highlights
COVID-19 has put a significant strain on the Central Asian economies
The economic considerations and quantitative data used for the relative economic imperatives and implications of COVID-19 and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) makes the study based on a mixed method which is being used to identify the relative significance and implications of COVID-19 in the Central Asian economies and its growing prospects for the BRI
China realizes the need of using COVID-19 as an immediate geopolitical opportunity to enhance its strategic influence in the Post-COVID-19 Central Asia
Summary
COVID-19 has put a significant strain on the Central Asian economies. Experts believe that the economic impact of the Pandemic could last longer than its direct health impact in the region. By the measure of Bourdieu’s Symbolic Power, the assumption suggests that China, with its ambitious and pro-active role, is bent on inevitably changing the global landscape in terms of economics and security outlook, and in terms of the flow of ideas and normative influence which has fueled and became the corner stone of Chinese foreign policy during the COVID-19 pandemic where China tried to attract global audience with its initiatives like Health Silk Road, COVID Diplomacy, and special White Paper on ‘Fighting COVID-19: China in Action’ that builds a normative weight to China’s symbolic profile in the region (Vangeli, 2018) In this way, as will be explained in the following portions, BRI is becoming a major tool for China by which it is developing its geopolitical profile in the region by multiplying the utilities of the projects and maximizing incentives for the pandemic-hit regional Economies
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