Putin’s War and Shifts in the European Union-Russia-China Strategic Triangle: Quo vadis Eurasian Connectivity?

This article uses the lens of the strategic triangle to explore the connectivity interactions between the European Union (EU), Russia and China before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since 2004, the EU’s economic dynamics have moved to its Eastern peripheries. Since 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), moving westwards, has shortened the distance between Europe and China. Russia benefitted from its energy exports to both Eurasian powerhouses and began to build up the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). However, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, struggling with weak economic performance, Russia played the peripheral role of resource supplier in the EU’s and China’s increasing Eurasian connectedness. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a response to its self-inflicted weakness, challenges the Eurasian dimension of the BRI. The EU’s regulatory liberal capitalism, Russia’s territorial aspirations in the post-Soviet space, and China’s distributive state capitalism are incompatible with the EU’s connectivity approaches. The EU turned Eurasian connectivity sectors into sanction mechanisms in response to Russia’s war. Hence, the question: Quo vadis Eurasian connectivity? The paper’s methodological approach, more interpretative than data-driven, derives from the neoclassical realism perspective, tracing these strategic triangle dynamics. An emerging East-West Southern Route circumventing Russia and a Russia-instigated North-South Axis of Eurasian connectivity from the Arctic to South Asia might partly replace the trans-Russian East-West dynamics.This article uses the lens of the strategic triangle to explore the connectivity interactions between the European Union (EU), Russia and China before and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since 2004, the EU's economic dynamics have moved to its Eastern peripheries. Since 2013, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), moving westwards, has shortened the distance between Europe and China. Russia benefitted from its energy exports to both Eurasian powerhouses and began to build up the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). However, after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, struggling with weak economic performance, Russia played the peripheral role of resource supplier in the EU's and China's increasing Eurasian connectedness. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a response to its self-inflicted weakness, challenges the Eurasian dimension of the BRI. The EU's regulatory liberal capitalism, Russia's territorial aspirations in the post-Soviet space, and China's distributive state capitalism are incompatible with the EU's connectivity approaches. The EU turned Eurasian connectivity sectors into sanction mechanisms in response to Russia's war. Hence, the question: Quo vadis Eurasian connectivity? The paper's methodological approach, more interpretative than data-driven, derives from the neoclassical realism perspective, tracing these strategic triangle dynamics. An emerging East-West Southern Route circumventing Russia and a Russia-instigated North-South Axis of Eurasian connectivity from the Arctic to South Asia might partly replace the trans-Russian East-West dynamics.補正完畢TW