The Celestial Empire looks to the West

Abstract

The Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) initiative demonstrates the Chinese desire to become a political and economic leader of the modern world. In this article the author analyses popular views and opinions made by Chinese experts about the “Economic Belt”. He also describes the key trends occurred on the early stages of the initiative 's implementation. The work touches on such aspects as resource allocation, trade and investment policy, development of transport infrastructure. However, SREB initiative is likely to face some significant problems on the next stages such as intergovernmental and interagency communications, potential countermeasures from the side of the USA or regional powers, terrorism or high level of political uncertainty in some of the involved states. The author concludes by giving his view on the potential role of the Silk Road Economic Belt as a new element of the Chinese concept of foreign policy. Obviously, strategic objectives overweight the economic ones. However, the lack of concrete information makes it difficult to interpret the purposes of the project accurately. Beijing's real rationale remains an issue for further research to provide valuable insight for Russia-led integration projects in the post-Soviet space.