ABSTRACT
This chapter studies China’s involvement in the Central Asia through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Sections 1 and 2 analyze China’s main aims, such as logistic, economic, and energy cooperation with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in the framework of BRI’s Silk Road Economic Belt. Section 3 focuses on China’s cooperation with regional states under the auspice of BRI’s Digital Silk Road. Section 4 argues that Beijing with its Health Silk Road has secured the place of Chinese vaccines in the markets of all Central Asian states, which creates additional opportunities for Chinese medical production sector. Section 5 claims that through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with other members China and Russia try to keep region secure and do not let fundamentalist Muslims take power in Central Asia. Section 5 argues that through “China plus Central Asia” cooperation mechanism, China aims to develop its relations with Central Asian states in multilateral level without any other Great powers’ involvement, as it is in SCO. It concludes that China through its BRI has mostly kept its advancement in Central Asia in pre- and post-COVID-19 eras, although the outbreak made some problems for the trade.
