Name: Sergei Ignatev, Deputy Head of the Section for Economy and Politics of China, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences

Title: Understanding of the Silk Road Initiative: Challenges and Opportunities for Russia

Abstract:

From middle and long term perspective, the Silk Road Economic Belt is going to become the major factor responsible for increasing China’s economic and political influence in Central Asia. In this situation, the Chinese government is choosing a fairly logical way of creation of demand for Chinese high-tech goods overseas. For this aim, it is formulating external economic strategies of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Economic Belt (hereinafter referred to the Belt and Road). The focus of the Silk Road Economic Belt is in Central Asia.

The Silk Road Economic Belt is not an institutionalized process but aimed at the following goals: support the economic development of inland China (in the first place, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), create markets for Chinese goods, support the expansion of Chinese capital in countries of Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Transcaucasia, create demand for products of redundant capacity beyond the boundaries of China, expanse high-tech production in the sectors of national economy and increase its percentage in total volume of Chinese exports, provide transit trade routes to Europe (bypassing the loaded trade routes), expanse internationalization of China’s yuan and increase its share in the global financial system, and create an operation range for Chinese standards (following patterns of Trans-Pacific or Trans-Atlantic Partnership).

Main components of the Silk Road Economic Belt are China’s financial platform, its railway diplomacy, its internal globalization and international cooperation, as well as foreign policy of China.

Implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt is going together with regionalization of Chinese economy and globalization of China.

The Chinese government has begun to develop a detailed action plan for the next three years in the field of international cooperation, which involves largescale investment in the facilities of the Silk Road and the establishment of a modern production base along it. At the same time, international cooperation within the framework of the One Belt and One Road Initiative is a key component of the 13th Five-Year Plan. It involves the use of Chinese equipment and other means of production in the implementation of various projects abroad, rather than the inclusion of local manufacturers in the production chain of Chinese companies. Priority is given to the cooperation between Chinese companies and regional businesses as part of the Silk Road initiative.

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