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Based on more than a decade's writing, research, and travel, this
book offers a rare glimpse into China's expanding economic,
cultural, and political power in the Eurasian heartland. China's
rise is changing the world. Much attention has been given to how
China's geo-economic vision is playing out in the global economy,
or how its technology is reshaping the planet, yet it is over its
western borders, in Central Asia, that China's influence has been
quietly expanding in a more pervasive way. It is here that you can
find the first strand of Xi Jinping's grand Belt and Road
Initiative, China's new Silk Road to the West. It is to the
Eurasian heartland that we can look for an understanding of China's
new foreign policy vision and its consequences. In Sinostan, two
acclaimed foreign policy experts recount their travels across
Central Asia to keep their finger on the pulse and tell the story
of China's growing influence. They interview Chinese traders in
latter day Silk Road bazaars; climb remote mountain passes
threatened by construction; commiserate with Afghan archaeologists
charged with saving centuries-old Buddhist ruins before they are
swept away by mining projects; meet with eager young Central Asians
learning Mandarin; and sit with officials in all five Central Asian
capitals, bearing witness to a region increasingly transformed by
Beijing's presence. Their stories and experiences illustrate how
China's foreign policy initiative has expressed itself on the
ground, and what it means for those living both within and beyond
the boundaries of its 'inadvertent empire'.
This anthology of articles, short studies, and interviews by
Alexandros Petersen was written over the span of ten years,
starting in 2004. Yet they are even more relevant today in their
prescient analysis. Petersen insightfully addressed the
implications of the West withdrawing its engagement from the
Caucasus and Central Asia, the expansion of the Chinese influence,
and Russia's strategic interests. The collection is organized along
four main topics: (1) Eurasia and a changing transatlantic world:
the world politics of shifting frontiers in the post-Soviet world;
(2) Energy geopolitics in the Caspian and beyond, with its crucial
implications for European energy security; (3) the Black Sea world,
covering the dynamics of Russia, Turkey, and the South Caucasus,
including the role of NATO and frozen conflicts in the region; (4)
the new silk roads: China's inroads in Central Asia, which is often
overlooked in the West but will be critical for the geopolitical
balance of powers.
The South Caucasus has established itself as a corridor for
transporting energy from Azerbaijan to Georgia, Turkey, and on to
Europe, symbolized by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. This
new infrastructure has created an east-west "Eurasian bridge" in
which transnational extra-regional actors, especially the European
Union and international financial institutions, have played a
critical role. This book offers an original exploration of
integration in the energy and transport sectors amongst Azerbaijan,
Georgia, and Turkey, and the capacity of this to fundamentally
change relations between these countries. In the period studied,
from the mid-1990s to 2008, integration in energy and transport did
not result in broader political, security, and sociocultural
integration in any significant way. The author sets his analysis in
a theoretical framework, drawing on theories of integration, but
also grounds it in the detailed, empirical knowledge that is the
measure of true expertise.
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