China's Belt and Road Initiative and Central Asia

The Sustainable Hong Kong Research Hub will hold a hybrid seminar entitled China's Belt and Road Initiative and Central Asia, given by Dr.Mher Sahakyan, Asia Global Fellow of the Asia Global Institute of University of Hong Kong, on 7 November 2022. 

The seminar will discuss China’s involvement in the Central Asia through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It analyzes China’s main aims, such as logistic, economic, and energy cooperation with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in the framework of BRI’s Silk Road Economic Belt. 

It also focuses on China’s cooperation with regional states under the auspice of BRI’s Digital Silk Road. It argues that Beijing with its Health Silk Road has secured the place of Chinese vaccines in the markets of all Central Asian states, which creates additional opportunities for Chinese medical production sector. This study claims that through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with other members China and Russia try to keep region secure and do not let fundamentalist Muslims take power in Central Asia. 

It also argues that through “China plus Central Asia” cooperation mechanism, China aims to develop its relations with Central Asian states in multilateral level without any other Great powers’ involvement, as it is in SCO. It concludes that China through its BRI has mostly kept its advancement in Central Asia in pre- and post-COVID-19 eras, although the outbreak made some problems for the trade.

Details of the Seminar are as follows: 

Date: 7 November 2022 (Monday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Format: Hybrid Mode (Q&A section only open to physical attendees)
Physical: G7603, Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, City University of Hong Kong 
Virtual: Zoom Meeting
Language: English
Registration: https://cutt.ly/ANWOecJ 
(Registration ends at 5 pm on 6 November)

Speaker: Dr. Mher Sahakyan, AsiaGlobal Fellow of the Asia Global Institute of University of Hong Kong. 

Dr. Mher Sahakyan is AsiaGlobal Fellow of the Asia Global Institute of University of Hong Kong. He is founder and director of the China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, in Yerevan, Armenia. His publications included  China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Armenia (CECPSR 2019 ), which was shortlisted by the International Convention of Asia Scholars in Leiden, Netherlands, for its 2021 book prize.  He is also author of “The New Great Power Competition in Central Asia: Opportunities and Challenges for the Gulf”,  (Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, 2021), China and Eurasia: Rethinking Cooperation and Contradictions in the Era of Changing World Order (Routledge, 2021) and China and Eurasian Powers in Multipolar World Order: Security, Diplomacy, Economy and Cybersecurity (due to be published by Routledge in March 2023) . 

Moderator
Dr. June Wang, Associate Professor, City University of  Hong Kong.