The Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt: the impact of the Sino-Russian geopolitical strategies in the Eurasia region

In the last years, Russia and China are engaged to implement two geopolitical strategies which involves the Eurasia region, with the aim to develop the economic cooperation between East and West by means of trade and energy routes crossing Central Asia. At present, the implementation of the Eurasian Economic Union represents one of the most influent attempt to promote cooperation in the region, potentially including the creation of a supranational framework in order to upgrade the cooperation also in the political dimension (starting from the coordination of the respective national foreign policies), even if this option is strongly feared by Central Asian countries. At the same time the Chinese strategy of the Silk Road Economic Belt is an attractive project involving all Central Asian countries in a profitable energy and economic network, following the Chinese huge investments aimed to boost infrastructures and to develop national economies. Since 1991 post soviet Central Asian republics have had a different approach towards initiatives and projects of regional cooperation in the economic, political and security fields: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have always supported and participated in regional cooperation initiatives, while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan appear reluctant to be involved. It is evident that the implementation of these two projects - which apparently seems in competition but they could potentially merge - will have interesting repercussions on the economic relations with the EU, widening the opportunities for a lucrative East-West business, opening new trade routes and consolidating the interdependence between Eurasia region and the EU member states. Furthermore, these two geopolitical strategies will influence the political and economic evolution of Central Asian countries as well as their foreign policies.