ABSTRACT
For centuries, Central Asia has been a scene of rivalry between global powers competing to advance their interests in Eurasia. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), promising to strengthen transcontinental links in Eurasia at all levels, implies unprecedented benefits for the Central Asian states and, at the same time, securing China’s interests in the region. The scholarship on the new trends of Chinese foreign policy in the republics of the former Soviet Union mostly overlooks the limits of the support of the BRI by prospected participants. In the view of China, the attractiveness of Belarus for the BRI has been argued by the favorable location of this country. China’s initiative has been largely supported by the authorities throughout Central Asia and has started to be carried out in the form of “conjugation” with local development plans and strategies.
