The Prequel to China's New Silk Road : Preparing the Ground in Central Asia

This book offers the prequel to China's successful implementation of its New Silk Road, the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The preconditions for the establishment of especially the land route between China and Western Europe have been set decades ago in Central Asia. In the political, security, and economic realms, China had to find arrangements with Russia as well as the Central Asian states. Border disputes had to be resolved, a security architecture and political cooperation was lacking. The key to BRI's success today lies in China's successful diplomacy of the 1990s and 2000s. This book tells the exciting story behind the largest geopolitical infrastructure project of our time. Tilman Pradt is a geopolitical analyst and consultant based in Berlin. His research focus is on China's foreign policy. He is a supervisor and contributing analyst at the geostrategic analysis and business consultancy, Wikistrat, and works as a senior advisor for companies and business associations. He writes for various international publications and his book, China's New Foreign Policy, was published in 2016 Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction: Belt and Road Initiative (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 1-9 The Setting: Geopolitical Situation in the 1990s and 2000s (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 11-29 Introduction to Shanghai Five (and SCO) (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 31-44 Territorial Disputes in Central Asia (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 45-54 Progress of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 55-69 Economic Cooperation Among SCO Members (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 71-85 Security Cooperation Among SCO Members (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 87-99 Key Players in the Belt and Road Initiative (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 101-113 Status Quo of the Belt and Road Initiative and Outlook (Tilman Pradt)....Pages 115-126