Centred discourse, decentred practice: The relational production of Russian and Chinese rising power in Central Asia

Introduction

A few years ago, globalisation was the main trend of world development. Now the situation has changed. The point is not that the negative effects of globalisation are felt in much more painful way, but rather there are other things making the case obvious.*1

Strengthening intraregional ties has gone ahead. The European Union used to be a pioneer in this regard. After several decades,countries from all over the world followed its example. In addition, almost all major powers are now convinced that regionalisationmeets their interests. It gives additional economic incentives. It allows an increasein thecompetitive advantages they posses. It strengthens their authority and influence on international arena. It transposes them into the category of authentic poles of a multipolarworld.*2 Transformation of regionalisation into one of the most important determinants of the internal and external development of states sharply raised the question of the organisation of interregional cooperation and competition. Finding suitable algorithms and their formalisation became the imperative of time. It happened regardless of whether major world players decided to contribute to this or resist, because “even players like the United States or China cannot be such completely individual poles”.*3 For the space of Greater Eurasia, the correct answer will have a special meaning. Let us analyse why, in order to justify the preferred solution – the choice in favour of the formation of a cooperative interregional order.

 

Basic concepts and perceptions: defining Eurasia

The spatial outlines of Greater Eurasia are blurred. One of the possible approaches is to focus on a purely geographical criterion. It is preferable, however, to use an inclusive approach, implying that all countries belonging politically, economically and existentially to this endless super-region are invited to cooperate in the framework of Greater Eurasia. From this point of view, Greater Eurasia is a space that connects the following regions: Northeast and Southeast Asia, Greater Central Asia, Greater Middle East, the whole of Europe, North Africa and maybe even Oceania. Such an understanding of Greater Eurasia is proper to Moscow and Beijing, as well as the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union.

 

Wider versus Greater Eurasia

For the designation of Greater Eurasia in Western international documents and political science literature, the term Wider Eurasia is most often used. This term is a Western-style political construct that is dedicated to cancel, replace and to marginalise the concept of Greater Eurasia. Wider Eurasia suggests the expansion of political and normative cultures and traditions of the EU towards third countries. Greater Eurasia, on the contrary, insists on such an organisation of political, economic, legal, humanitarian and cultural space, which is based on equal cooperation and the contribution of each participant to the common project.

The Greater Eurasia approach has another advantage. It provides an opportunity for each state to integrate into Greater Eurasia simultaneously both individually and through regional instruments, which gives the whole structure much greater flexibility and democracy, while the concept of Wider Eurasia comes from the fact that there is only one grouping of states that acts as a single unit, and all the rest must agree with its rules of the game.

The idea that only the EU is moving along the path of integration, and only its institutions are legitimate is no longer valid. In recent years other regional projects have rapidly developed. Their driving force has been Russia, China, and other world and regional players.

 

The multiplicity of projects of intraregional cooperation in Greater Eurasia

The Eurasian Economic Union continues to move forward with its integration project. It has already built the Customs Union and outgrown it. Now it is striving to achieve the goals of ensuring four common market freedoms – freedom of movement of goods, labour, services and capital, relying, among other things, on the activities of such a supranational regulatory and legislative body, as the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), and the expanding practice of the EAEU Court. Recently, in the first half of the summer of 2019, the EAEU took another significant step in this direction: a draft document defining the strategic directions of economic integration until 2025 was sent to Member States for consideration.

It basically proposes to remove step by step, within a specified time frame and on the basis of road maps updated every two years, 71 major obstacles hindering the proper functioning of the internal market which were identified by the Eurasian Economic Commission in cooperation with businesses. The rest of the document deals mainly with the implementation of a principled course towards deeper harmonisation of law enforcement and legislation of Member States. Road maps are being prepared in other areas of the EAEU activities as well. Institutional construction continues too – in July 2019 the Eurasian Economic Commission Board approved the draft Agreement on the Advisory Council on the exchange rate policy of the EAEU states.*4

In addition, the EAEU confidently includes surrounding nations. In 2015 the EAEU signed the first external agreement on free trade with Vietnam. Later it signed an agreement with China, primarily to do with the elimination of administrative and other barriers and harmonisation of custom procedures. In 2018 a little bit more specific agreement was concluded with Iran. The EAEU continues negotiations and consultations on free trade with India, Egypt, Serbia and a number of other countries. It has memorandums of understanding with associations of countries that are somewhat slower moving along the path of integration, such as ASEAN, MERCOSUR, the Andean Community, the Latin American Economic System, and the Community of Independent States. Such developments makes the EAEU, as Tatyana Valovaya, former Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the EEC, puts it, a “full participant in the global geo-economic architecture”.*5

In practice, the EAEU does much more than is known. Its misfortune is that it lacks necessary media support. The EAEU is poorly represented and therefore enjoys insufficient social support. There are a lot of speculations about it. In 2017-2018 the EAEU experienced a mini-crisis. The Russian currency had weakened, and Russian-made goods and services poured into the market of other Members of the Union, which caused discontent. However, as the Russian economy and currency strengthened, despite the restrictions imposed by the EU and the USA, the interest of other Members of the EAEU towards the continuation and improvement of the effectiveness of the Eurasian integration process has increase dagain.

In contrast to the EU and the EAEU, China, Japan, India, Uzbekistan, Australia, ASEAN countries carry out their integration projects by other methods, which received the generic name "new regionalism". The essence of these methods consist of solving the problems of reducing and eliminating barriers in trade and other areas, bringing countries together and creating compatible legal regimes and economic spaces without assigning national sovereignty and establishing cumbersome, costly and self-sufficient supranational bodies.*6

China forms free trade zones with any countries willing to go along with it. The attractiveness for the partners of China of the relevant agreements is due to several factors. The main thing is that these countries get preferential legal treatment and access to loans issued by Beijing on favourable terms and without political demands; large-scale industrial and infrastructure facilities appear in their territory, erected by China in exchange for opening up the market for Chinese goods and services that are more competitive. Intraregional trade and exchanges are growing at a faster pace. The economy of the region easily attracts much-needed investments for all, and develops steadily and dynamically.

 

Multiplicity of institutions of intraregional organisation in Greater Eurasia

The mosaic and multi-vector development of Greater Eurasia is enhanced by the abundance of separate regional and trans-regional structures and organisations arising in the super-region. So far the EU is not part of the competition in this respect, with a powerful system of supranational and intergovernmental multi-level governance. However, as far as global governance systems are concerned, the EU and its Member States have until recently relied entirely on the United States and international structures they created, comprising WTO and universal financial organisations of the Bretton-Woods system, which they believed also serve their interests. Together with the USA, they prevented their timely reform and democratisationin favour of the developing world. Therefore, China, Russia and the leading regional powers of the planet had to look for palliatives. China, relying on its rapidly growing economic and financial strength, has established several world banks, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Russia and China, together with the countries of Central Asia, created the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Together with India and Brazil, joined later by South Africa, Russia and China created BRICS – an exceptionally representative international structure capable of speaking on behalf of all continents.

Previously, such a state of Greater Eurasia was easily explained. In the context of the processes of growing regionalisation and the strengthening of interregional ties which have entered into competition with the stalled globalisation, it becomes an anachronism. It does not correspond to the needs of further development of interregional trade. It infringes large interregional projects. It conflicts with the interests of the largest players in the super-region. Naturally, the answer to these challenges is to follow.

 

Competition between 5 geopolitical projects of arrangement of Greater Eurasia

The first initiative to tackle the challenge of interregional trade was the appearance of the Asia-Europe Forum in 1996 at the initiative of France and Singapore. Initially, it was conceived as a link between the EU and East Asia. Now it has outgrown this framework. It includes the EU and its member states, Norway and Switzerland, on the one hand, the ASEAN countries, the ASEAN secretariat, Japan, India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Mongolia on the other. Since its inception, the credo of the Forum has been the concepts of interconnectedness and interdependence. Gradually, the idea of connected development (connectivity) became the core of all its activities. However, the Forum could not offer something more specific than a dialogue about issues.

The situation is completely different with the Chinese project of the Silk Road (Belt and Road initiative). During the phase of implementation it evolved strongly conceptually. At the beginning, it was about purely infrastructural plans for the construction of trans-regional highways and railways and the improvement of sea routes for the transport of Chinese goods to Central and Western Europe. Now it is presented as a financially viable instrumental opportunity for the spread of the Chinese economic miracle to transit and receiving countries.

In this context, the formation of a new trans-regional infrastructure is seen as generating the emergence of new industrial centres, new growth points, a new economy, and investment objects, in which transit countries are really interested. In this case, infrastructure projects in the Chinese version turn into a much more important and advantageous thing – connecting the lagging regions with the Chinese locomotive of economic modernisation. In fact, as it tries to present BRI, Beijing seeks to engage them in economic co-development. At the same time, as far as practical politics and economics are concerned, the Silk Road remains, first of all, what it always was – “an initiative pushed by internal factors” and “a project to spread Chinese influence”.*7

Authorship of another, this time fully geopolitical project, which can also be attributed to the number of projects linking together the separate parts of a huge super-region, belongs to Russia.*8 Its distinguishing feature is that it is in order of magnitude more comprehensive than all others.*9 To emphasise this, Russia called it the project of forming the Comprehensive Greater Eurasia Partnership (spaces, community – CGEP).The CGEP project was put forward by the leadership of Russia after an agreement was reached with China on the conjunction of the Economic Belt of Silk Road and the activities of the EAEU, which was later repeatedly confirmed.*10 The Joint Statement on the Development of Comprehensive Partnership Relations and Strategic Interaction, for example, stated: “the parties believe that the One Belt-One Road Initiative and the idea of the Greater Eurasian Partnership can develop in parallel and in coordination, will contribute to the development of regional associations, bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples of the Eurasian continent". Therefore, at some point, Chinese experts even suggested that “in geo-economic terms, Russian Greater Eurasia and Chinese One Belt and One Road are one and the same”, *11 which, of course, is not so.*12

The agreement received the support of the supreme body of the EAEU, which promptly gave the Eurasian Economic Commission a mandate to negotiate with China on behalf of the "five". The concluded agreement, in essence, on reducing administrative and other barriers is the first in a series of planned treaties. In addition, during the state visit to Beijing in 2018 of the President of the Russian Federation, the economic ministries of Russia and China approved the terms of reference for concluding a comprehensive treaty of a new generation.

The project of the formation of the CGEP has economic, military-political as well as politico-normative dimensions.*13 It involves the construction of new transport corridors; the erection of obstacles to external interference in internal affairs of the countries involved; conflict prevention; and joint resistance against sanctions at an international level.

The CGEP proceeds from the assumption that supranational, unified, uniform integration in the super-region is impossible. Countries of the super-region can win only as a result of the mutual removal of barriers, a feasible combination of efforts to solve common problems, and the compatibility of the conditions for the activities of individuals and companies throughout its space. Accordingly, the project for the formation of CGEP proposes a model of the most gentle, flexible, different-speed integration, which aims to protect the identity and independence of each participant, ensure political stability and accelerate economic development and modernisation.

The latest project concerning Greater Eurasia, understood as Wider Eurasia, is the policy of connectivity between Europe and Asia of the European Union. It was made public quite recently – in mid-September 2018.*14 Its appearance was a kind of response to the Chinese Belt and Road initiative, with the EU fearing its dominance might be threatened. In fact, this policy consists of two parts: negative and positive. The negative can be judged by the policy of containing China in the political, economic and media sphere, which Brussels has recently been trying to pursue, following Washington. It seeks to prove both to itselfand to all transit countries – civil society, expert circles and the political establishment that the Silk Road is beneficial only to Beijing. Chinese companies are implementing the “Belt and Road” in an opaque manner, using grey, black and other corruption schemes. The positive component is expressed less clearly. The main components of the policy are about improving infrastructure, and in addition, investments in human capital, energy security, digitalisation, and technical standards convergence.

However, none of the independent players would agree with such a type of approach to building cooperation in Greater Eurasia, and not Wider, as Brussels insists. The same is true for the region of Central Asia.*15 Even research centres operating in Brussels warn of this.*16 Moreover, the EU is ready to spend not hundreds of billions of dollars, but a modest or even several orders of magnitude more modest amount on investments in Wider Eurasia. Take Central Asia: the formally accumulated investments of the EU reached 62 billion euros, but, after all, the lion's share (at 75%) was invested exclusively in the oil and gas industry of Kazakhstan.*17

Another good reason why the new EU policy, like the one adopted for its development (in fact, not such a new)*18 strategy for Central Asia was met with coolness in Moscow, is because it was perceived by politicians, business and the expert community as having a second agenda. The impression is that: “The EU is interested in solving the problems of security and energy in cooperation with these states, and at the same time it automatically opposes the deepening of integration processes in the post-Soviet space”. Yet the EU would still insist on unrealizable Europeanisation of these states and their transit towards European standards; the EU “does not take into account the positions of China and Russia, and does not suggest joint approaches”.*19

It does not add optimism that approximately six months after the publication of its connectivity policy, Brussels, following in the wake of the warlike rhetoric of Donald Trump, whom it seems to be trying to distance, sharply tightened the declared line with regard to Beijing. In March 2019, the European Commission and the European External Action Service submitted to the EU political institutions a Communication with its outline, in which China was called an “economic competitor” and a “systemic rival”.*20

In this document, and at a meeting of the European Council that supported it, held on March 21-22, 2019, Beijing was accused of imposing an alternative illiberal development model. It was presented with a standard set of claims that it puts Western companies in unequal conditions, in illegitimate ways supports the national producers, and violates intellectual property rights. It was sharply criticised for absolutely everything: the Silk Road, investment in strategic objects of the European economy, and the damage that Chinese state-owned companies, according to EU institutions, cause to European business and the region's international competitiveness.*21

Like Moscow, Beijing was blamed for violating the rules on which the world order is based. And this time it was mainly about violations of the rules of international trade, reciprocity, openness, intellectual property. With this, according to a part of the European expert community, the EU began to exaggerate in a biased manner – it needs to be very careful in blocking with the United States, because the methods used by the USA not less and maybe even more undermine the rule-based order.*22

 

Instead of a conclusion: the prospects for matching geopolitical projects of ASEAN, China, Russia, and the EU

In the case of the normalisation of relations between Russia and the EU and the refusal of Brussels from claims of exclusivity and normative messianism , an interface between all the geopolitical projects that have been analysed above will become quite possible. The countries of the super-region are interested in peaceful creative development, not confrontation. Creative cooperation is beneficial to all. It can give a lot. This is or should be the essence of a cooperative multiregional order, in which there will be a place for everyone.

For its part, Russia will be ready to support it. When creating the EAEU, Moscow proceeded from the fact that integration in the former Soviet Union would become a brick for common building with the EU, serve to form a common economic, legal and humanitarian space, will lead to the establishment of a union of unions. And now Russia, together with the other members of the “five”, continues to build up the internal law of the EAEU in such a way that it does not contradict EU law to the maximum possible extent.

The Russian initiative to form the CGEP suggests equal participation of all countries and all regions, including the EU. Its anti-Western sound, which permitted the rejection of the EU and the formation of a common space from St. Petersburg to Shanghai, has long been eradicated. It is important that Brussels follow this recipe in understanding and implementing its course of external action; that it does not hinder integration processes in the post-Soviet space; ceases to assume that the EAEU will collapse in the near future, and that the Silk Road and the activities of the EAEU are extremely difficult to integrate.If and when this happens, the following concrete proposals could be translated into practical terms:

1. In institutional terms

- To establish a multi-level dialogue between the EU and the EAEU, between NATO and the CSTO, then or in parallel – between the SCO and the EU, BRICS countries and the EU.

2. In legal terms

- Take steps aimed at achieving compatibility between external free trade agreements and negative integration agreements, concluded by the EAEU and the EU with third countries and associations;

- Launch, at an expert level, the elaboration of various aspects of the future basic agreement between Russia and the EU or the basic agreement between the EAEU and the EU replacing it, taking into account the newest international practices – innovations included in the EU agreements with Canada, Japan, as well as with Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan and promising rules included in the agreements of the EAEU with Vietnam, China, Serbia, etc., without prejudging the decision on the date of official negotiations;

- Test tripartite negotiations with the participation of Russia, the EU and third countries (going beyond the negotiations on the transit of energy supply) to check how much this format is needed, how it works, what results can be achieved with it, to expand the palette of means of cooperation and interaction across the Greater Eurasia;

- Agree on how Serbia could remain in the free trade zone of the EAEU and the CIS, first at the time of accession negotiations and then on an ongoing basis (regardless of when and under what conditions Belgrade may be accepted in the EU) to get the in valuable experience of pairing the two integrations, which could be further extended to other countries.

3. In terms of restoring non-alternative law-abiding behaviour of states

- Create a permanent open platform for dialogue on international law issues;

- Arrange regular bilateral meetings of national associations of international law, then add a multilateral dimension to them, leading to the creation of the Greater Eurasian Society of International Law;

- Clarify the meaningful content of the notion of “order based on rules”, recently promoted by Brussels and Tokyo, and its relationship with classical ideas about international law and the global legal system order in order to remove misunderstanding between Brussels, Moscow and Beijing and between Tokyo, Beijing and Moscow;

- Concentrate the efforts of all countries of the super-region on the harmonisation of that part of the national legal regulation that serves implementation of large infrastructure interregional projects and interregional production chains and value chains creation;

- To raise the status of the ongoing work of various international research teams and public structures over the content of the projects for building common spaces and, in particular, the common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean;

- To carry out the changeover of the activities of the Council of Europe as the bearer of the invaluable experience of international rulemaking and after that give it an opportunity to work on the development of international agreements of a new generation that would form the basis for the formation of the CGEP;? When renewing cooperation between the Federal Assembly and the European Parliament, focus it on solving problems of harmonisation of legislation and law enforcement.

- To carry out the changeover of the activities of the Council of Europe as the bearer of the invaluable experience of international rulemaking and after that give it an opportunity to work on the development of international agreements of a new generation that would form the basis for the formation of the CGEP;? When renewing cooperation between the Federal Assembly and the European Parliament, focus it on solving problems of harmonisation of legislation and law enforcement.

4. Normalisation of the situation in the information space

- Reduce the degree of misinformation that has swept over the media sphere;

- Return to the practice of respectful attitude to each other and an objective presentation of the facts, events, positions, initiatives;

- To focus on points of common interests, and not on what divides, contrasts and spurs confrontation.

5. Revision of previously proposed foreign policy and geopolitical concepts

- Remove the inherent plaque of one-sidedness in the course of their processing and renewal;

- Focus on harmonisation;

- See how to achieve synergy.

6. Streamline decision-making procedures

- Try to reach an agreement on reducing step by step the level of politicisation of problems in the preparation and implementation of important economic decisions in the international environment;

- Be guided not so much by foreign policy considerations but by commercial interests when working on preparation and implementation of economic decisions;

- To return to market laws a priority in the regulation of free trade and international interaction and to interfere in their operation only in a coordinated manner or taking into account a preliminary exchange of views.

7. Return to the principles of multilateralism

- To reach a political agreement, which will then receive a regulatory expression, on a phased rejection of the policy of resorting to unilateral measures;

- Similarly, on inadmissibility of the use of sanctions mechanisms in circumvention of the powers of the UN Security Council;

- Likewise on the unlawfulness of the extraterritorial effect of the norms of national law.

8. Joint implementation of large infrastructure, energy and other projects

- To pave the way towards their internationalisation (so that the spirit of deterrence, which representatives of the Western establishment and expert circles [Spanger 2019] can feel and reproduce in everything now, is replaced by a spirit of cooperation and interaction in solving common problems).It seems that the implementation of the above proposals could avoid fierce competition between various projects of the organisation of Greater Eurasia and lead to the establishment of a cooperative order in the super-region.

Mark ENTIN
MGIMO-University

 

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*1 Afontsev Sergey (2016). Don't panic. What the Trans-Pacific Partnership really means. Russia in global affairs. 14.01.2016 https://globalaffairs.ru/number/Bez-paniki-17937 ; Dergachev Vladimir (2016). New regionalism. Institute of Geopolitics]. http://dergachev.ru/geop_events/novy-regionalizm-01.html#.XTLu62oo8jg

*2 Koldunova Ekaterina. Meet at ASEM! Theory and practice of trans-regional relations: a reminder for Russia. International life]. https://interaffairs.ru/jauthor/material/321 ; Kuznetsov Denis. 2016. The phenomenon of trans-regionalism: problems of terminology and conceptualization. Comparative policy. Volume 7]. No 2 (23). С.14-25. https://www.comparativepolitics.org/jour/article/view/429

*3 Portyakova Natalia (2019). Wake them up at night – they will talk about problems with barriers and exemptions”. The Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics of the EEC Tatyana Valovaya – on thoughts of presidents and prime ministers of the EAEU countries. Vesti]. No 123 (30353). 05.07. С. 2-3.

*4 Eurasian Economic Commission official website (2019). An advisory board on exchange rate policy of states will appear in the EAEU.]. 17.07. http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/nae/news/Pages/17-07-2019-2.aspx

*5 Portyakova Natalia (2019).

*6 Afontsev (2016); Dergachev (2016)

*7 Mitter Rana. 2019. How the one-party state may shape our future. Chatham House. The Royal Institute of International affairs –The World Today. 03.08. https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/twt/how-one-party-state-may-shape-our-future

*8 Karaganov Sergey (2017). From the turn to the East to the Great Eurasia. Russia in global affairs]. 30.05. https://globalaffairs.ru/pubcol/Ot-povorota-na-Vostok-k-Bolshoi-Evrazii-18739

*9 Karaganov (2017); Karaganov Sergei, Bordachev Timofei (eds.). 2016. Toward the Great Ocean –4: Turn to the East Preliminary Results and New Objectives. Valdai Discussion Club Reports. 38 p. http://valdaiclub.com/files/11431/ ; Karaganov Sergei, Bordachev Timofei (eds.). 2017. Toward the Great Ocean – 5: From the Turn to the East to Greater Eurasia. Valdai Discussion Club Reports. September. 41 p. http://valdaiclub.com/files/15300/ ; Karaganov Sergei, Bordachev Timofei (eds.). 2018. Toward the Great Ocean – 6: People, History, Ideology, Education Rediscovering the Identity. Valdai Discussion Club Reports. September. 63 p. http://valdaiclub.com/files/19357/

*10 President of Russia official website (2015). Joint statement of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on cooperation in linking the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Economic Belt of Silk Road. 08.05. http://www.kremlin.ru/supplement/4971

*11 Li Xin. 2018. Eurasian partnership: A new balance of power? Analytical Media “Eurasian Studies”. 04.01. http://greater-europe.org/archives/4098

*12 Li Ziguo. 2017. The Greater Eurasian Partnership: Remodeling the Eurasian Order. China International Studies. 20.03. http://www.pressreader.com

*13 Entin Mark, Entina Ekaterina. 2016a. Russia's Role in Promoting Great Eurasia Geopolitical Project. Rivista di studi politici internazionali. Firenze. No 3. P. 331–352; Entin Mark, Entina Ekaterina. 2016b. The New Role of Russia in the Greater Eurasia. Strategic Analysis. Т. 40. No 6. P. 590-604; Entin, Mark & Entina Ekaterina. Gods of dreams, or how to turn the dream about Greater Eurasia into a specific geopolitical project. All Europa.ru].No 1 (117). http://alleuropa.ru/?p=14211 ; Entin Mark and Entina Ekaterina. In the search of partnership -VIII: Russia and the European Union in 2018 -the first half of 2019. M.: Zebra-E].

*14 EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (2018). Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Investment Bank “Connecting Europe and Asia – Building blocks for an EU Strategy”. 2018. Brussels, 19.9.2018 join (2018) 31 final. 14 p. https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/joint_communication_-_connecting_europe_and_asia_-_building_blocks_for_an_eu_strategy_2018-09-19.pdf

*15 Council Conclusions on the New Strategy on Central Asia. 2019. Brussels, 17 June 2019 (OR. en) 10221/19 COEST 139. 7 p. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/39778/st10221-en19.pdf

*17 Sahajpal Mridvika, Blockmans Steven. (2019). The New EU Strategy on Central Asia. Collateral Benefit? CEPS in Brief. 21.06. https://www.ceps.eu/the-new-eu-strategy-on-central-asia/

*17 EP (2019)EU's new Central Asia strategy. European Parliament Briefing. 12 p. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/633162/EPRS_BRI(2019)633162_EN.pdf

*18 Putz Catherine(2019). The European Union's (Not So) New Central Asia Strategy. Two years in the making, the EU's new Central Asia strategy doesn't offer many new positions. The Diplomat. 16.05. https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/the-european-unions-not-so-new-central-asia-strategy/

*19 Eremina Natalia (2019). European Union in Central Asia: Penetration Strategy. Eurasia Expert]. https://eurasia.expert/evrosoyuz-v-tsentralnoy-azii-strategiya-proniknoveniya/

*20 EU (2019). Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the European Council and the Council EU-China – A strategic outlook. Join/2019/5 final. 12.03. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/

*21 Casarini Nicola(2019). US-China Trade War: Why the EU Should Take Sides and Favour the Rules-based Order. Istituto Affari Internazionali. 22.07. https://www.iai.it/en/pubblicazioni/us-china-trade-war-why-eu-should-take-sides-and-favour-rules-based-order

*22 Casarini (2019).