Introduction

The Tang defeat at the hand of Abbasid Caliphate forces in the Battle of Talas has often been portrayed as the event that halted Chinese westward expansion into Eurasia. China’s region-building efforts, expressed through its foreign policy, are dominated by explicitly domestic imperatives that originate from the relationship between security and economic development. The collapse of the USSR, while initially posing numerous challenges for the People’s Republic of China, ultimately provided Beijing the opportunity to directly engage its western neighbors. Geopolitically, China has been successful in promoting its securitization discourses in Eurasia, particularly regarding core domestic issues of terrorism, separatism, and extremism or what are generally referred as the “three evils.” China’s Eurasian region-building project has thus far galvanized the beginning of a region-wide geopolitical, economic, and potentially an ideational, eastward reorientation.