Mapping Eurasia : contrasting the public diplomacies of Russia’s ‘Greater Eurasia’ and China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative

This paper contrasts the public diplomacies behind China and Russia’s approaches to Eurasian Order and process-traces the gradual interaction between the two. It argues that Russia’s ‘Greater Eurasia’ vision seeks to create a common space in Eurasia in a concert with other influential powers like China, but with Russia remaining as an indispensable pole. China’s ‘Belt and Road’ rhetoric of Eurasian connectivity suggests that China formulates an ambition to co-shape global order, for which its regional activism serves as leverage. Drawing on available documents and selected interviews, this paper argues that Russia and China’s grand narratives (‘Greater Eurasia’ and BRI, respectively) indicate a principled, albeit still restrained willingness to collaborate in the future mapping of Eurasia’s political space. Despite a possible economic competition between the operating modes of the economic land corridors envisioned under the BRI and the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union, a joint interest between Russia and China in countering Western governments in global institutions tempers the effects of regional rivalry