Is China Winning the Scramble for Eurasia?

Matthew P. Goodman, Jonathan E. Hillman

Security, Eurasia

Roads, railways and other new connections are reshaping the Eurasian supercontinent and creating new forms of competition as well as cooperation.

IT BEGAN in London’s early morning darkness, on June 24, when the British public’s vote to exit the European Union was confirmed. Exhausted but jubilant, Vote Leave advocates could feel their fingers on history. At their headquarters, one leader leapt onto a table and recited a passage from Shakespeare’s Henry V: “This story shall the good man teach his son.”

At the other end of the Eurasian supercontinent, another Shakespeare aficionado was rehearsing his own remarks. Jin Liqun, founding president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a lifelong student of Western literature, had a few hours before kicking off the organization’s first annual meeting at the China World Hotel in Beijing. They had embarked on a “historical journey,” Jin told the audience, “towards building a new type [of] multilateral financial institution.” Officials from the United States, who declined to join the AIIB, were not in attendance.

The Bard himself could hardly have set up greater dramatic tension. Yet the contrasting scenes confirm the widespread view that today’s Western-led order is stumbling as its lead actors—notably, the United States and United Kingdom—look inward. China’s increasing importance in global affairs has also become conventional wisdom.

Less attention—certainly in Washington—has been paid to how Asian powers are reaching beyond their borders to spread their influence. Infrastructure investment is a central plot line of this story. Roads, railways and other new connections are reshaping the Eurasian supercontinent and creating new forms of competition as well as cooperation.

For example, the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, will give China access to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port and the Indian Ocean. Just over one hundred kilometers away, India and Japan are developing a competing port in southeastern Iran. Russia is playing both sides, expressing support for CPEC while backing a corridor with India that runs through Iran. Examined closely, these and other projects are windows into national ambitions.

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