Transcript

Eurasia Rising: A New World

Order?
Bruno Maçães
Senior Advisor, Flint Global, Senior Fellow, Renmin University, Beijing, Author, The Dawn of Eurasia: On
the Trail of the New World Order

Raffaello Pantucci
Director, International Security Studies, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Dr Jue Wang
Associate Fellow, Asia Programme, Chatham House

Chair: Dr David Lewis

Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of Exeter

14 February 2018

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2 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Dr David Lewis
Great. Well, we’ll start off, I think, welcome to this evening event, entitled the Eurasia Rising: A New
World Order? Quite a wide ranging and open idea today. We’ve got a great panel. We’ve got Bruno
Maçães, who is the Author of the Dawn of Eurasia, a new book. Copies I think available here, for those
who are intrigued. I’ve already had a look through it. It’s a very fascinating read. We also have Raffaello
Pantucci from RUSI, an expert also on Chinese policy in Central Asia and in parts of Eurasia and we have
Dr Jue Wang, who’s an Associate Fellow here and also, at Leiden University.

So, each member of the panel’s going to speak for six or seven minutes, then I’ll ask a couple of questions
as Chair, we’ll have a little discussion. Then we want to open it up for a Q&A, so we’ll have about half an
hour for Q&A at the end.

Just to say, the event is being held on the record, so bear that in mind when you’re commenting and
asking questions. If you’re using Twitter, you’re very welcome to tweet using the #CHevents, and
obviously, please do put your phone on silent mode.

So, Bruno, if you wouldn’t mind starting us off with six or seven minutes.

Bruno Maçães
Thank you so much for the introduction. I have a little bit of cold, but I’m not too bad. It’s great to be
here with Dr Wang and Raffaello. Raffaello, I feel we have a bit of a – we are on tour together, ‘cause
we’re discussing Eurasia just a couple of weeks ago in Westminster. Let me introduce the book very
quickly and then there’ll be opportunities to discuss other things beyond the book. But let me use my
seven minutes for that.

The book argues that we are entering an age where it no longer makes sense to think of a distinction
between Europe and Asia. That’s what Eurasia means in the book. It means the supercontinent, from
Lisbon to Vladivostok, or from Lisbon to Beijing, or from Lisbon to Jakarta, if you want to take it to the
full extent of the continent. What – I’ll start with the supercontinent and then I’ll say a little bit about the
idea that more than a supercontinent, we should speak of a Eurasian age, or a Eurasian century. So,
there’s a meaning in space and there’s a meaning in time.

Now, the supercontinent, I would start with the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the Iron Curtain. Europe
was reunited at last, whole and free, but, paradoxically, it was also the moment when it started to have a
certain difficulty in separating or distinguishing itself to what lies to the East. Would it expand without
limits, or would it be subject to influences from the East? Certainly, Russia and China were now to be
integrated in some kind of common economic space. Trade links were opened up with Russia, and
especially with China. Infrastructure was developing – developed, connecting Europe to China. It was
first developed by Western multinationals and Western financial institutions. More recently, of course,
that project has been taken up by China with the Belt and Road.

Perhaps the first time in history where the whole supercontinent is truly united. If we think back to the
time of the Silk Road, of Marco Polo, I would say that those are interesting ideas for a romantic spirit, but
certainly, the trade was very limited. The – no-one made the journey all the way from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, with the exceptions of the two/three names that we know about, precisely because it was so rare.
But a genuine meeting of Asia and Europe is really a project of our own time, it’s not a project of Genghis
Khan, who certainly did not have it in mind. We know that for sure.
3 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

In this space, existing perhaps for the first time, one interesting question is, what role does Russia take in
this space? Certainly, a more flexible role can look in both directions. Asia was always for Russia a
continent of backwardness, of historical backwardness. That is no longer the case. It’s very clear when
you talk to Russian elites.

And that takes me to the final point about Eurasia as a continent. Not only does it reflect a new
geography, a new supercontinent. I think it reflects a time when the idea that European modernity would
become universal is now collapsed, or is now in deep crisis. We might’ve expected, perhaps, that some
parts of the world would never embrace modernity and some have argued this. Others expected that once
they embraced modernity, they would also embrace Western political institutions, they would also
embrace the European political culture. Well, what surprised everyone, I think, was that Asian societies
embraced modernity, but they developed their own varieties of modernity. And so, we’re left with a world
that hasn’t abandoned the European legacy of technology, of modernity, of modern societies, but it had
combined the European legacy with now, new varieties of Asian modernities. That’s, I think, why the
word ‘Eurasia’ is such a good word, because it captures a world where we have the European political
traditions still strong, still going, but it has to be combined in a very unstable compound with Asian
varieties of political modernity, which are now coming into their own and becoming visible to all, I
believe.

That’s been, very succinctly, the thesis of the book, which can then be discussed. I think I already
suggested at many of its details, but I’ll stop here for now.

Dr David Lewis
Thanks very much.

Dr Jue Wang
I will talk about – I will try to locate China in the picture drawn by Bruno, with two specific focuses. One
is the Belt and Road Initiative. One is the global economic governance. Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, I
guess, this is why we talk about Eurasia nowadays, especially because of China’s rise. So, the questions to
ask is, will China be better connected with all other countries in Eurasia? Or more important question to
ask is, will China’s BRI contribute to a better integrated Eurasia? And second focus is global economic
governance, this response to another question based by the book, will – does Eurasia, does the rise of
these new powers lead to a new world order? So, the question to be asked is, does China’s rise in global
economic governance challenge the existing US-led liberal economic order, new liberal economic order?

So, I will start with the BRI. So, BRI draws a very ambitious blueprint for China’s economic expansion,
regional and the global economic expansion. It covers 64 countries in the whole Eurasia and it aims for
strengthening policy talks, trade and – trading flow – trade flows, investment flows, people-to-people
next. So, this kind of scale and the comprehensiveness do present a better connected Eurasia, especially if
you look at the map that has been showed in media for many times. And then, more importantly, for
China, that might be a better connected, a better integrated, Eurasia, in which China plays a crucial
economic leadership role, okay?

So, especially the following innovations of BRI points at this prospect. First is, if you look at the map,
clearly, you see that the US is not there, and I think this sends some political message. Secondly, the
second innovation is China’s – the heated relationship with Central and the Eastern European countries,
which is this level of trader relationship is a pretty new thing nowadays. And nowadays, you can see
4 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Central and Eastern European Community Exhibition Hall in second tier trade cities in China and I think
it’s the first time the origin of the community are specifically identified. They are central in the Eastern
European community. There was no American Community Exhibition Hall or Western Europe
Community Exhibition Hall before and another example was, I was at a wedding in China, in a few weeks
ago, and at the wedding they were serving Serbian beer and Polish juice and I find that fascinating.
Another innovation is that there’s a clear political support for economic co-operation, like projects like
CPEC, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The last innovation is that BRI facilitates innovation and
development in a number of Chinese national and transregional institutions, like 16+1, ASEAN +1, and
NDB, or AIIB, etc.

So, when we answer to the question that will BRI lead to a Eurasia, we see these fascinating innovations,
but we also see a lot of challenges. I’ll not go into details. If you’re interested, we can discuss more later.
The first challenge is that BRI doesn’t really have a very strong driving force for political integration. BRI
originates from China’s General Overseas Investment Plan, which started way earlier, before. It doesn’t
really have a very clear – it’s not really a power expansion with very explicit geopolitical purposes, okay?
Nowadays, scholars even suggest the Government to avoid using words like ‘strategic’ or ‘geopolitics’
when they talk about BRI projects. They suggest that Governments should use more technical terms, or
economic terms to talk about efficiency, the delivery of projects, rather than use the geopolitical words.

Number two: BRI is the face – is facing multifaceted difficulties, okay, also political, geopolitical, social,
economic difficulties. Number three: if we talk about whether BRI really contributes to an integrated
Eurasia, I think the question to ask is not whether China gets better connected, but whether China’s BRI
really leads to an integrated Europe – Eurasia. And that requires China to skilfully use a multilateral
approach to solve regional disputes under the BRI framework, or to establish regional and transregional
institutions to solve problems and I think China is the – still not very experienced with using multilateral
approach.

So, very quickly move to the second point, global economic governance. So, what has China done? China
is actively pursuing strategic co-operation with regional organisations, like 16+1, ASEAN +1, Eurasian
Economic Union plus BRI, etc. China has led the establishment of NDB, of AIIB and more importantly,
we say AIIB is different. AIIB is China’s reaction to this neoliberal technocratic development ideology and
more importantly, it shows China’s own satis – dissatisfaction with the fact that China does not have
enough influence to – in the existing, the international financial institutions. The AIIB is different.

If you look at the AIIB’s principles, it’s leaner, greener, cleaner. It shows very much off China’s own
political interests. It also shows China’s dissatisfaction with the large bureaucracy in World Bank and
AIIB – that’s why it wants the AIIB to be a leader. But does that really mean China is challenging this
international liberal economic order through the AIIB? My answer would be probably not, because AIIB
hires a lot of former World Bank and ADB employees to build up the AIIB and loads of people behind the
AIIB are the ones who have had decades of working experience with the World Bank and the ADB and
some of them are also the core brain behind China’s own economic policymaking.

So, you can see a lot of consistency between World Bank ADB and the AIIB and if you look into the official
documents, you see China’s general very happy with what the World Bank does and what the ADB does,
China’s particularly likes the AIIB’s institutional culture, which is purposefully Asian, okay? It is built for
Asian, it serves Asia and so, I would probably say, China’s so happy with the World Bank and ADB, so that
it wants to follow the model and build a China-led version of the ADB, which is AIIB. So, I will stop there
with these two focuses.
5 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Raffaello Pantucci
Well, thank you very much, David, and thank you to Chatham House for the invitation. I will start by
saying that I have read the book. It’s very good. I would recommend everyone buy a copy immediately
afterwards and get Bruno to sign it. I would also say that it isn’t actually a book just about China and I
think the whole – in some ways, what Bruno was saying about it being about broader Eurasia is, kind of,
a thrusting point of it and so, I think it is important to remember that what we’re seeing happening in
Eurasia is not just the story about China.

Now, having added that caveat, I am now going to focus on China, because that tends to be where my
research focuses and the part that I look at in particular and I think to try to complement what Jue was
saying, to look at China’s, kind of, security aspects and interests that lie within this. ‘Cause I think when
we’re looking at the, kind of, Belt and Road Initiative as a concept, I often think that it’s very important to
remember the first place where Xi Jinping inaugurated this concept, which was in Kazakhstan, in Astana,
where he gave the first speech in September 2013 and he talked about the creation of a Silk Road
economic belt. Then, a month later, he goes to Jakarta and gives a speech where he talks about the 21 st
century maritime Silk Road, you know, the paradox of a road in the seas. Anyway, let’s put that to one
side. But then, these two become fused together and we get the Belt and Road Initiative, which is now
the, kind of, overriding concept that we see driving a lot of Chinese foreign policy.

But I think the point of starting in Kazakhstan and in Central Asia, I think is really key, because I think,
for me, in many ways, what we’re seeing happening in the Belt and Road more globally is a, kind of,
globalisation of China’s foreign policy or policy towards Central Asia, which at its heart, was really about
domestic policy, about Xinjiang, about China’s Western response to Xinjiang, which is, you know,
historically it’s, I think it’s sixth of China’s land mass, has a population of around 20 million, I think, has,
I think, 70% of China’s onshore oil, substantial portions of its onshore gas, big chunks of coal. It’s a very
rich, sort of, province, but then, at its core, it’s got this clash between a minority, increasingly minority
Uyghur population and a growing majority Han population. And this has expressed itself in instability
within the region, but also, instability that we see showing up internationally, in the, sort of, fields of
global Jihad that we see around the world.

And so, from China’s perspective, I think the big turning point was 2009, where we saw big riots in
Xinjiang, in Ürümqi, where hundreds of people were being killed in very brutal rioting and we see a great
push to try to redevelop the region, to try to revitalise it. You know, from a Chinese perspective, the
answer was, well, if we’re going to try to stabilise this region, we need to make it economically prosperous.
But if you’re going to make Xinjiang economically prosperous, you’re going to have to reconnect it to the
world, because Xinjiang is as landlocked as any of the Central Asian countries that it’s next to. I
remember, I think, in 2012 going to Ürümqi and meeting with some Ürümqi officials, who were quite
proudly telling me that, you know, “We are the biggest, you know, Chinese city that’s close to Europe,” so
you should come and invest in us, you know, is the underlying logic of it. And you know, but there is
something to it, you know, if you’re sitting in Ürümqi, it’s a long way to China’s coast, you know. So, if
you’re going to start manufacturing stuff out there, well, where are you going to send it? Where are you
going to sell it? What are the markets you’re going to exploit?

And so, I think this underlying logic of trying to, sort of, develop the region around it because it would
have a knock-on effect to develop Xinjiang, to ultimately stabilise the province, to ultimately help with
Chinese security, I think it’s important to note, because I do think it is one of the, kind of, driving factors
of when we’re looking at China’s, sort of, investments in Eurasia more generally. But it’s also why I think
China’s efforts in Eurasia are really significant for the, sort of, broader Belt and Road, to try to understand
6 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

some of the issues that China’s encountering there, are ones that you will start seeing and notice in other
places as well. And also, because I think when you’re looking at what China’s doing in Eurasia, it is
directly consequential to back home and so, therefore, it’s directly consequential to the Chinese
Communist Party and its rule over the country and also, I think it is the first strand of, kind of, the BRI
more generally.

But I think what’s also interesting about, sort of, Chinese efforts in this part of the world is that you’re
seeing a – and you mentioned CPEC before, and you, sort of, briefly alluded to some of the problems that
I think China’s encountering, I think that what’s interesting to me is that China is encountering many of
the same sort of hard security problems that everyone else encounters in all these places. I mean, I think
from a Chinese perspective, the answer to a lot of these problems, which in many ways are quite
fundamental issues that, kind of, cut to the core of the creation of countries. You know, if you look at, sort
of, Central Asia and the way the borders are delineated, and the way that, you know, some of the great
cities of Uzbekistan, like Bukhara, is essentially a Tajik city that was, sort of, cut and left on the other side
of the border and now recreated as an Uzbek city. It really cuts to the fact that you’ve got some fairly
fundamental ethnic tensions and clashes between tribes that go back generations, that exist in some of
these parts of Eurasia. And from a Chinese perspective, this idea of building this, sort of, corridor of trade
and economic prosperity that will sweep through this area, to connect, you know, Chinese manufacturing
to European markets through these sorts of areas, is one that’s going to have to overcome some pretty
fundamental problems that have been going on for a very long time, that won’t necessarily be solved by
the Panacea of economic prosperity and development. And I think that’s one of these, sort of, issues that
we’re seeing China is encountering, both in terms of, sort of, specifically, you know, getting across
borders, where you’ve got, sort of, tariff barriers, or you’ve got barriers that are in fact really a product of,
you know, capricious Governments not getting along with each other and making it hard to trade, all the
way through to, you know, the physical impediment of trying to build a road through a country like
Tajikistan, which is 93% mountain.

You know, you’ve got these, sort of, physical problems, but then you’ve also got security problems, you
know, some of these countries are pretty unstable. If you look at the, sort of, sweep of the Belt and Road
Initiative, I think one of the interesting things, when you look at any of the pictures that are, sort of,
published of the BRI, is they all tend to go around Afghanistan. You know, you see this very convenient
little V where, you know, it goes shooting from Kashgar down to Gwadar and Karachi and that’s the seas
and then it goes shooting up through Central Asia, Russia, maybe across to the, sort of, Caucasus and
ultimately, to European markets. And in the middle of that V you’ve got Afghanistan, you know, a country
which has been a, sort of, perennial problem, which it actually hasn’t been a perennial problem for the last
30 years. It’s been a, sort of, security problem for its region. But quite clearly, it’s an area which, you
know, some of these routes cannot go through. And you’ve seen an increasing effort by the Chinese to try
to find ways of incorporating Afghanistan into this, but that means you have to start dealing with some of
these security problems there. And when you see China is starting to try to play a role, in terms of trying
to broker peace in – with Afghanistan, in trying to get the Afghans and the Pakistanis to sit down at the
table together. But, you know, a lot of countries have tried to do that for a very long time, with a very
limited evidence and track record of success and frankly, I think what we’re seeing now is the, sort of,
limits of China being able to, sort of, solve some of these disputes through, just sort of, the driving force of
economic policy.

And then the other thing is trying to exert levers of foreign policy. How do you actually exert levers of
influence and change in some of these countries? This is very difficult, you know. How do you, sort of,
force change on a country and how do you use your economic investment to try to incentivise that
change? This is an approach that Western countries or European countries have been trying for a very
7 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

long time, with, in some cases, again, a very limited track record of success. And so, I think, even though
the numbers that we see coming out of China are so substantial, you are still seeing a real question about
how much they’re actually able to effect a direct change on the ground.

And this brings me, in some ways, to, I think, one of those, sort of, final points I’ll try to wrap up,
conscious of time, is that I think one of the interesting phenomenon that we’re seeing is that in a lot of
these parts of Eurasia, and I think specifically when you’re looking at the ones that are adjacent to China,
you’re seeing parts of the world that have got some pretty fundamental problems, in terms of with their
neighbours and in terms of internal issues. Where China is increasingly becoming the most consequential
economic actor on the ground and there has to be a consequence to that and the consequence to that has
to be that a lot of these countries will start to look to China to try to help solve some of their problems.

You know, previously you could see, you know, whenever people have problems they would, sort of, track
straight to, you know, Washington or maybe a European capital, if there was a, sort of, historical colonial
connection there and say, “Well, you know, you need to help us broker this kind of peace.” Well, I think
increasingly, you see the question of whether that path will start being beaten to Beijing instead and so,
then, Beijing will be presented with this question, well, how do you resolve some of these problems that
everyone else has been struggling with for all this time? And I think there’s a real question there about
how China manages playing that role and how it navigates these regions, which ultimately, are ones which
have, you know, fundamental tensions within them, you know, some of which Bruno captures quite well
in his book, in terms that he’s been travelling around to visit some of these places and hearing about the
deep animosity they have of their very much, their next-door neighbours. How does China actually
resolve all of this and how is China able to fix some of these big problems that we see on the Eurasian
supercontinent? And I will leave it at that, ‘cause David is waving at me and time is up.

Dr David Lewis
Yeah, it’s brilliant timing, just right to the point. Thanks very much, that’s a brilliant overview in a few
minutes. I want to push on a couple of points. One, I think we’ll pick up in a minute what Raffaello is
alluding to, which is perhaps the contrast between sometimes the fantasy of Eurasia, and I like to say, and
the reality on the ground. But first, I’d like to push you a little bit on the politics of Eurasia. Seems to me
that every socially constructed geographical space has a political idea at the begin – at the centre of it,
Europe, America and Eurasia’s no different to that. And we talked to Russian, sort of, intellectual
thinkers, about Eurasia and they have a very specific idea that this is the promotion of a particular kind of
politics, which is certainly not the democratic politics of Europe.

If you look at the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, this is – has been termed, “A league of
authoritarian gentleman,” by Alex Cooley. This is a set of states for which, to the most part, promote
rather illiberal norms. And you alluded, and what I like about your book, you know, you are talking a bit
about the problems of European liberal thinking, where do you see Eurasia, in this sense? Is there a
political idea at the heart of it and does the Eurasian – does the dawn of Eurasia really mean the sunset of
democracy as we know it?

Bruno Maçães
Well, Eurasia is a word that I like that has a magical resonance. Part of the attraction of the word is that it
has this, sort of, a dark past. So, you think about Orwell, where the word appears there, and he represents
authoritarianism. You think about Mackinder, where he represents a very hard way of thinking about
8 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

international politics and geopolitics, or you think about these days Aleksandr Dugin in Russia, an even
worse kind of authoritarianism.

Now, my plan was to get the word, to change it two or three years from now and no-one will remember
and make it a word that can represent something much more – much closer to the ability to live with
cultural contradiction and the ability to live with a world that is – that exists – the whole world now can
be said to exist at the same historical period. The idea that Europeans are more historically advanced has
collapsed. But still, it is very different. It is a poorer world with really fundamental differences, but where
it’s no longer possible to say those people that are different, they will eventually converge to us. That’s the
idea of Eurasia for me.

Now, what it means politically, I think it means, of course, a combination of co-operation and
competition. But competition is unavoidable and the book is perhaps even more focused on competition
than on co-operation. It’s unavoidable simply because we have deeply integrated political spheres that
are very different and have no intent of converging with each other. So, if I only make one point tonight,
it’s that point, the idea that China is converging to the West is a senseless idea. And so, we will have to
learn to live with a world that is highly technological, where China and India, in particular, will take the
technological spirit to the next stage. If you thought that Western technological modernity was scary and
awesome, wait until you see Asian technological mobility in China and in India.

So, it is a dangerous world. It is a world of competition. But hopefully, it’s also a world where we’re going
to be much more open to cultural difference than we were in the last 400 years, where everything was
seen through European eyes.

Dr David Lewis
Okay and I think we’ll come back on that then. Jue, just a quick question, but it’s really about China’s
view of Eurasia. Eurasia’s a great idea for Russian intellectuals, I think. It gives a, sort of, new idea for
Russia’s status in the world and it’s maybe exciting if you’re in Kazakhstan or in Central Asia. If you’re in
Beijing is Eur – is the concept of Eurasia at all attractive intellectually, do you think?

Dr Jue Wang
I think it’s – well, it’s obviously is a attractive idea in – for Belt and Road Initiative, right? If we – that’s
why we connected China with Eurasia. Otherwise, the – if you just talk about the pure geographic
position, China’s at the very, the east end of this whole big piece of land. I think Eurasia is becoming
interesting for China, but I wouldn’t just say for now China has a clear political view, or – especially about
the geopolitical games inside the – this supercontinent. I would say China is starting to getting interested
in the idea of a better connected Eurasia, but China sees more economic benefit for itself. At the same
time, China has loads of pressure, external pressure, people questions. So, you get the benefit about the
others. So, I think China next step is they probably need to try to figure out how, at the same time when
ensure its own benefit, it can make sure it provides public goods for the others. Then, based on that,
maybe China can consider about a larger Eurasia, in terms of political integrity or geopolitical games.

Dr David Lewis
Hmmm, that’s interesting. And just finally, before we open up, Raffaello, you talked a lot about this – the
difficulties China faces in Central Asia and you’ve travelled in the region. How much do you think
Governments in Central Asia are prepared, if you like, to resist the allure of China? I mean, it’s – we’ve
9 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

seen somewhere like Turkmenistan, where they’ve effectively sought – they now sell their entire gas
exports to China and they’ve become essentially, dependent on China economically. I mean, you see they
are having some political problems as a result. Are there lessons being learned, do you think, in the
region, and does that mean that these difficulties China is perhaps facing, even now, may increase as
things go on in the future?

Raffaello Pantucci
I mean, I’m sure they will, because, you know, as soon as you have a, kind of, rising power that becomes
more dominant and more assertive, people naturally, instinctively, kind of, react against it. And I think
when you’re talking about the Central Asian countries in particular, you know, it’s not that long ago that
they had a different, rather overbearing, you know, country that they were being dominated from in
Moscow. So, you know, I think these are young – you know, relatively young countries, of 25-years-old
now, you know, that don’t particularly like the idea of swapping one for another. And what’s interesting,
actually, if you go back and look at the 90s, I mean, you as a student of Central Asia, know this far better
than me, I mean, Turkey tried a big push into Central Asia and tried to, sort of, tap the fact that it had, you
know, this, sort of, Turkiet connection with the countries in Central Asia, and that, kind of, failed, I think,
for two reasons.

One was that the Turks didn’t have any money, quite frankly, and they had an economic collapse, which
happened, sort of, soon after this big idea of pan-Turkism as being advanced. But then, also, because I
think to some people these were new countries that were just working out what a national identity was.
And you know, to immediately abrogate that to another capital rather than Moscow is not particularly
attractive and I think with China there is a question there that is similar. And I think if you talk to any of
the Central Asians, you will find that they will all tell you that they practice this approach of multivector
diplomacy, where they will say, “Oh, no, no, we’re not dominated by any one of these, we’re able to
balance. You know, we can balance between the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians and the
Westerners. We’re, kind of, able to do that.”

I question a little bit how valid that balance thing is or how much, frankly, they’re being swept along in the
winds, one way or the other, and I think Turkmenistan’s a prime example of this, you know. I mean, you
know, they, kind of, box themselves into a corner of having only one customer for their energy. That one
customer decided it didn’t need that much gas this year and so, it decided to cut down the amount it was
consuming and suddenly, you’re in real trouble. You’ve got a huge hole in your budget and you’re unable
to pay all your debtors. So, you know, that was very much a problem of their own making, but I do think a
lot of these countries recognise this and I think that, you know, that problem of, you know, how China’s
able to continue to advance its economic interest in these places, while also responding to the fact that
you will see a certain element of pushback, I think is going to be one of the interesting questions that
we’re going to see increasingly express itself as they go forwards. I think you start with the countries that
are neighbouring and then you, kind of, push out and the further away you get, the less that, sort of,
tension seems to exist in some ways. But I think at the [inaudible – 32:19] it’s quite strong.

Bruno Maçães
Yeah, Kazakhstan, yeah.

Raffaello Pantucci
Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, right, yeah, yeah. Or Pakistan, actually, increasingly.
10 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Bruno Maçães
Or Pakistan.

Dr David Lewis
Okay, great, lots of interesting points. I think we don’t have too much time, so we want to open up for
everyone to have a chance to ask questions. Can I please ask, as usual, that they are pithy and concise and
that you state your name and affiliation, please? Start at the back there, there’s a microphone.

Vincent Champion
Thank you very much. Vincent Champion, a Journalist and a Chatham House member. Can I go off,
slightly off-piste, in a way? China’s north eastern provinces are as remote from the Chinese seaboard as –
well, maybe not quite geographically, but they’re much, much closer to the Russian Far East ports, like
Vladivostok and Vostochny and there are Sino-Russian proposals to develop a super port in that area,
around Posyet Bay and so on. Do you see any reality in that, or is it just hot air, so to speak? Can I – I
don’t know who to ask that question of, but I’m quite inter – the other thing, if I may, sorry, I’m just not
being pithy, I’m sorry, the trans-Caspian initiatives tend to take Central Asian trade towards the West,
either via the Black Sea or through the Bosphorus and these – I don’t think these can be ignored either. I
don’t know whether someone wants to comment on those two points, please, thank you.

Dr David Lewis
Want to pick up on trans-Caspian, anyone?

Raffaello Pantucci
I mean, I think, yeah, trans-Caspian projects have, sort of, been going on for some time and they’ve been
discussed in European circles certainly forever, which immediately makes you think they’re going to be
stuck in some sort of mud. But I think there is a reality to them and I think you can see some of the
investments that are happening and if you’re sitting in Beijing and you’re talking about the, sort of, you
know, the Belt and Road, I think, barring [inaudible - 34:21], if I can’t remember, but I think it is – I think
we’re wrong to conceptualise it as single strands. It’s like a latticework and so, that latticework goes in
lots of different directions and part of that is through the Caucasus and through the Caspian. And you can
look at the investments that have happened in Georgia in particular, in the, sort of, ports there and in
some of the routes across there, which I think show that from Beijing’s perspective, there is a possible
connectivity that stretches through that space, to ultimately, reach Europe. So, in some ways they can get
subsumed under it, which, in some ways, for me, is how you should interpret the Belt and Road more
generally. It’s a concept, a big concept under which lots of different things can fit and I think you just
have to, sort of, bear that, sort of, in mind.

On the China-Russia, I think that particular port I don’t know much about it, but I wonder a little bit. I
think Russia’s desperate for a Chinese investment, because, you know, sanctions mean it can’t really get
much Western investment at the moment.
11 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Bruno Maçães
I travel in those borders between China and Russia, but of course, my travels are now getting a little
outdated. This was in 2016, so things may have changed. What I saw was disappointing. The two
countries are busy with other things. They have plans, in terms of integrating their border regions.
There’s a lot of popular suspicion of those plans. Russians, of course, I remember arriving in Lake Baikal,
walking to seeing the small encampment of Russians, and they were looking at me. I reached the
encampment and they said, “Oh, thank God you’re not Chinese.” That’s a bit of the spirit in Lake Baikal.
If someone arrives that’s not Chinese, it is a surprise and it’s welcome. So, it will be difficult, but I think
it’s in the interests of both countries, so it will eventually happen.

Dr David Lewis
The spirit of Eurasia yet to reach Lake Baikal, it appears. Who’s got another question? We’ll try and fit in
as many as possible, please.

Peter Ferdinand
Peter Ferdinand, Warwick University. Actually, it’s two questions, one first for Bruno, and it’s the pesky
academic question, because you raised the issue of modernity in your topic, but you didn’t really say
anything about it. What you were stressing was the importance of – yes, I’ve got the book as well, but I
haven’t finished…

Bruno Maçães
Brilliant.

Peter Ferdinand
…reading it yet. There is a notion of multiple modernities that’s been around in social science literature
for some time. Is this just for – a manifestation of that, but is there something that might be thought of as
being a Eurasian modernity that you want to highlight, is – or is it just European modernity on the one
hand, and a, kind of, Asian modernity on the other? Is there any kind of synthesis between them? The
second question is for Raffaello, primarily, I suppose, and this is the response of Russia to the initiative,
the Belt and Road Initiative. Can Russia and China treat each other as equals in this process, over the
long period of time? What about Russia’s fears about what Chinese leadership might mean for the whole
of the region, in terms of shifting the balance of power? I could, of course, ask you as well about whether
China can treat the states of Central Asia elsewhere as equals too, the little states. China has a problem
sometimes with that, but if three questions are too many, that’s fine.

Dr David Lewis
Bruno, do you want to comment?

Bruno Maçães
Yes. Well, you asked a philosophical question, so I’ll give a little philosophical answer and everyone else
will have to excuse us. Now, I was in university in the United States in 2000/2006 and there was this
wave of hybrid culture and hybridity studies and I was never very excited about it and I still am not. I talk
12 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

about this a bit in the book. Eurasia, for me, and Eurasianism, if you want to call it, does not represent a
fusion, or a hybrid variety of cultures. It represents the ability to live with different cultures without
trying to reconcile them. And the example I give in the book is let us say Hong Kong businessmen,
throughout the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, they were not trying to reconcile anything. They had hours in their
lives where they worked like a Chinese businessman and then they had hours where they worked like a
Western businessman. And this is, kind of, a model that has not been theorised in philosophy or cultural
studies departments that I find much more interesting than the idea that you’re going to try to reconcile
everything. I think this idea of hybridity and reconciliation only gave rise to the very empty, very cold,
very formal, notion of globalisation that we had for the past 20 years and it doesn’t mean anything. So,
we have to be rooted in different places and live with the contradictions. That’s the idea of meeting that I
– meeting of cultures that I have in my book. The meeting never gives rise to a perfect fusion of cultures.

Dr David Lewis
Hmmm, interesting. Russia and China, can they treat each other as equals, do we think, or is Russia
always the junior partner in that romance, Jue?

Dr Jue Wang
Well, that’s not a question for me, it’s about the China and the smaller states. Well, I actually miss
answering questions to Peter, because he’s my PhD Supervisor.

Peter Ferdinand
Now you mention that.

Dr Jue Wang
I can say a little – I don’t really have answer of – well, I guess that not even Chinese Government has a
clear answer about how to treat smaller states fairly in each cases, and that there are different standard of
what’s fair. But I think BRI gives a good opportunity to let China practicing and the easy start is the
Pakistan. Well, Pakistan is not really a small state. It is the 6th biggest population in the world, but to
China, it’s a smaller state. So, in that case, I guess, the projects in Pakistan have relatively lower political
risk, because of the better political interactions, political relationships. I think BRI is the perfect
opportunity for China to practice the economic political interactions with a smaller state than itself, to
establish multi-levelled co-operation mechanisms, right? The corporation at the state level and at a
corporate level, a social level, what the Embassy can do in this kind of co-ordination, among different
levels. So, from an optimistic perspective, I think it helps.

Dr David Lewis
Have you got a perspective?

Raffaello Pantucci
Funnily enough, on the China-Russia side I think that – I mean, I think that it was a relationship, which is
increasingly becoming imbalanced and imbalanced towards China and I think that’s only becoming more
pronounced as time has gone along. I think if you want to look at the, sort of – if you want to trace it
precisely, I’d look at the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which, at its very genesis, I think was
13 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

allowed to be created by Russia because it thought well, this is our way for controlling Chinese activity in
Central Asia where – which completely overlooked the fact that Beijing was doing much more stuff at a
bilateral level than it was ever really doing at an STO level. And then, over time, you can that the
structure of the STO have increasingly been pushed in a direction that China wants them to go or wanted
them to go in the first place. And so, it’s been the whole institution is increasingly meaning that China’s
playing an increasing role also on the security side, within Central Asia. The perception was always well,
okay, the Chinese do the economics and the Russians do the security, which, by the way, I was never sure
why that made economic sense for Moscow. Security costs money, economics you make money, so I don’t
get that. But, you know, but anyway, if we look at it like that, I think now increasingly, you see China is
playing a more consequential security role on the ground there as well. And so, you can see the story of
Chinese – China’s increasing influence in that region is really one that cuts across the entire, sort of,
board and is increasingly displaced in Moscow.

And what is Moscow’s response to that? Well, what can they really do, quite frankly? Because they need,
you know, economic investment from China. They’ve got – they can’t – you know, they’ve got a problem
with their relationships everywhere else. They’ve got – they need that sort of economic relationship. But
then actually, even more fundamentally, and this is why I think you’ll continue to see this willingness by
Beijing to make sure that the relationship stays on the surface, you know, diplomatically as one of equals,
they both see that the other is an important ally on the global stage, you know. They both have each
other’s backs in the United Nations Security Council when they need it. You know, in the, sort of, in the
global perspective of the, kind of, liberal order that’s advanced by the Western powers of, you know, free
democracy everywhere, you know, they know that that guy will always have my back in trying to push
back against that. And so, that means, in some context, I’m going to have overlook a, sort of, clash, or
keep a clash behind the scenes, because of the superficial connection is really crucial and I think that
explains a lot of context, where you can see that there is a clear divergence of views.

I mean, you know, Ukraine, where, you know – or Georgia, where you see Russia going around redefining
borders. Well, China certainly doesn’t like that. What if people start redefining her borders? You know,
so they like this stable order and the Russian’s clearly upturn that, but you never really see that expression
come out in a public forum, because there’s a realisation from Beijing, I think, that this relationship is
very important and needs to be maintained at that sort of level, even though, by every metric, I would
argue, it’s clearly going in Beijing’s direction.

Dr David Lewis
Good. Let’s try and squeeze in more, where possible. One here, one right at the back on the left, yes,
please.

Shao
Hi, I’m Shao from China. We didn’t hear much about the role of United States or UK in the or – in what
you call the New World Order, or the Eurasia [inaudible – 44:11]. So, I would like to know, how do you
see will be the future role in all this? Because I remember that US, a few years back, put forward its so-
called the New Silk Road in Afghanistan and elsewhere and what’s the status of that and what do you see
will be the future?
14 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Dr David Lewis
Bruno, at the end of your book you say, “London might be the new,” was it, “Capital of Eurasia on
Thames”?

Bruno Maçães
Yes.

Dr David Lewis
This is our new post-Brexit vision. Is this realistic? What’s Britain’s role in the creation of Eurasia?

Bruno Maçães
Well, there’s the idea that London could become – the UK, as a whole, could become a new Singapore and
what does that mean? It means that Singapore was forced to connect with Europe and the United States
when it was severed from Malaysia and Indonesia and to do it very quickly and to do it very successfully.
That’s the extent of the analogy. But I do think this raises an important question. If you think that the
whole world is becoming European, even five years ago people thought that. Even the United States was
becoming European, healthcare for everyone, a European President. The whole world is becoming
European. Europe is going to rule the 21st Century. Then Brexit is a catastrophic mistake. You’re going to
have to go back on worse terms. If you think that the whole world is becoming Eurasian, then there’s
opportunities. The UK could, in some cases, establish a bridge between Europe and Asia. If you’re part of
the EU you cannot. And the countries that are trying, like Poland and Hungary, are going to get in
trouble, because you’re either with us or with – you are with China. So, I think there’s some opportunities
there. I don’t want to make too much of it.

The United States, let me just say quickly. So, the United States I think is going through a crisis precisely
because the world is changing. The United States was supposed to take European political culture to the
whole world. This was the historical task of the United States and for 100 years, it did very well. Now, I
think they are starting to realise that the world is more complicated, and a number of options are opening
themselves. You could either confront Russia and China, for which you’re going to need Europe, and then
transatlantic ties are going to be revived and strengthened and we’re going to have the West against the
East. That’s a possibility, although I think a remote one. But you cannot face China and Russia without
Europe.

Well, then, I think it’s more likely the United States is going to realise that the world is more complicated,
that history is not moving in the same fixed direction that it was supposed to and that perhaps American
political culture will have to, in some cases, adapt to the rise of China and perhaps we’ll see the United
States moving a little bit along this spectrum where Europe is one extreme and China is the other.
Perhaps you’re going to start hearing American political leaders, maybe you already can hear it with
Donald Trump, saying that, “Well, we have this rigid liberal idealism of the Europeans, we have the
soulless pragmatism of the Chinese and we Americans are in the middle.” I would not be surprised if ten
or 20 years now from now America would slowly started to think of itself in these terms. And, you know,
lo and behold, a week ago the Trump administration wrote a memo advocating for nationalising the 5G
network in order to be able to compete with China. Is the United States not developing an industrial
policy because its convinced that industrial policy works in China? I don’t know where it’s going, but
something is clearly happening, even in Washington.
15 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Dr David Lewis
We’ve got one right here, right at the front. Oh, we’ll just start there and we’ll come back to you, sorry,
seeing as the – yes, right in the middle, yeah, sorry.

Robert Moreland
Robert Moreland, I’m a member of Chatham House and a former member of the European Parliament.
But I’m not going to come back on the last question. My question is, essentially, we’ve talked a lot about
China and we’ve talked about its relations with Russia. If we were here 30 years ago with the subject of
Eurasia, Japan would have come into it much more, I think, and I’m wondering, in the context of today,
how much do you believe the other Eurasian countries are going to have an influence on the situation? I
talk about Japan, also, obviously India, etc., and the position of the Korean problem.

Dr David Lewis
And thoughts on Japan, anyone?

Dr Jue Wang
A very good question. Japan is – people tend to talk more about China nowadays, but forget Japan is still
the world’s third biggest economy and Asia’s second biggest economy and it’s still doing very well. And I
think the new data shows that Japan still invests more in South East Asia, in infrastructure, than China
and Japan is still leading ADB, and bear that in mind that ADB has been running for 50 years and the AIB
for two years. So, both China and AIB can still learn quite a lot from what Japan has built, yeah.

Dr David Lewis
And Japan’s very active in Central Asia as well, of course, as is South Korea. So, yeah, we need a quite
variegated approach, that’s what I feel.

Raffaello Pantucci
I mean, I think, in some ways, I’d tie this question to the last one, which is this question of, you know, is it
– well, what is the new order? Well, yes, I think the US will – if I’m right, I think Bruno’s articulated it
very tightly, but I think actually, the interesting question is what happens when the other Asian powers
start to rise up as well and what does that, sort of, mean, for this kind of order? What does it mean when
India becomes – is able to, sort of, live up to some of its potential in a little more of a substantial fashion?
And I think that’s a really interesting question and then you really start to see this question of Asia being
– you know, everyone sees Asia as the source of prosperity. At the moment we’re a bit all wrapped up in
the China dream, but there are lots of other, Japan we’ve just talked about, India, Pakistan’s a huge
economy as you say, you know, and has a huge, potential, Indonesia. You know, you’re talking about
some really big potential economies there, that when they start to, sort of, realise a little bit more, there’s
a real question about the whole centre of gravity of, sort of, global economic activity really shifting even
further out East, and not just to Beijing, but really to the entire region.

Also, just to very briefly come back on the last question, your question about the new Silk Road, the
American-led New Silk Road never went anywhere, because they didn’t put any money behind it and also
because it was basically a North-South connectivity project for Afghanistan, you know, and that’s all it
16 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

really was. It was not a, sort of, bigger vision than that. I think, you know, China has presented a very
different kind of Silk Road concept, whereas that was very – quite simply about connecting Afghanistan to
its region and linking up, sort of, North and South, and not much money happened – went in behind it.
With the exception, of course, of TAPI, the famous pipeline project, which, you know, we had a Turkman
Minister visit us a couple of weeks ago and he was saying, “Oh, it’s happening, it’s happening for sure,
we’ve seen it. It’s broken ground.” I’m yet to see if this Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India
pipeline will really come about.

Dr David Lewis
TAPI is the future and always will be, I think, yes. Let – we’ll just take three questions and then we’ll
come back. We’ve got one back there. I’ve got one right at the front here, who’s been waiting patiently.
Yes, right in the middle, yes.

Richard Sanders
Hello, my name is Richard Sanders. Actually, we talked quite a lot about – just about every other part of
the world in relation to Eurasia, but not much about Europe itself, and specifically nothing about the
European Union. And while we, again, we’ve talked quite a lot about the relationship between China and
Russia, what about the relationship between the European Union and Russia, given the fact Russia’s
hostility towards the European Union? So, how does that all play into the concept of Eurasia?

Dr David Lewis
I’m going to take a couple more and then we’ll come back to the panel. Got any questions over here?
Make sure everyone gets a chance to have their say. That section of the audience is very quiet. Nope,
okay. You have a question? Yes, good.

Moyis Bora
Yeah, I guess I’ll just use my privileges…

Dr David Lewis
You have the microphone.

Moyis Bora
…of having the microphone.

Dr David Lewis
So, you get the – yeah, you can say what you like, yes, yes.

Moyis Bora
Moyis Bora, Chatham House. I’d like to ask a little bit more detail on the India question, specifically to
show how does China see India within the region?
17 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Dr David Lewis
Great, how does China see India and the European Union in Russia? If you want to just take a couple of
minutes each to sum up on that, Bruno, perhaps you’ll start.

Bruno Maçães
Let me start with Europe and I’ll leave India for Dr Wang. So, in the book, and that’s still my view, I
describe Europe as being, you know the Game of Thrones there’s a wall and beyond the wall there’s a
danger, there’s disorder and we have to keep the wall and I think, unfortunately, this is how Europe
thinks about the world. Even when there’s no physical wall, even when the physical wall is criticised, the
mentality is still that beyond the borders of Europe, there’s a world of chaos and disorder, and
increasingly, the reaction is, we don’t want to have anything to do with that world. It’s a world that is
chaotic and unpalatable.

Erdoğan, we don’t want to deal with him, because he’s not someone you deal with. Putin, the same thing.
Of course, Trump the same thing. Europe is now developing a political culture that is so hi-tech, let me
put it that way, so developed, so perfected, that it doesn’t work anywhere else. It’s almost as if you have a
sports vehicle, but then you can only ride it in a prepared course. You cannot run it on the normal roads
and I think European political culture has become unable to function and to relate to the rest of the world.

I do think there’s some grounds for hope, because of course, our politics is open, is democratic, is – the
idea of criticism is ever present, and I think in the case of the refugee crisis, we saw that. The immediate
reaction was, let’s either ignore the rest of the world, we’ll welcome all refugees and then the important
question is, how we distribute them inside our borders. This was one view.

The other view was, let’s build a wall. Both views I think were misguided, because they represented this
idea of closing off from the outside world. But then, you see – you saw a reaction against it, and the
refugee crisis was eventually ameliorated or addressed when the European Union started to deal with
Turkey, started to deal with Macedonia and I think that’s the way that European will – Union will have to
work in the future. The rest of the world is there. It’s not becoming European and our interests require
that we deal with the world as it is, and not as we wish it to be. But I think that’s still an enormous
difficulty.

And let me finish with this, ‘cause I think it’s also the end of the panel. When I talk about Eurasia in
China, I see people really like the idea, not just the academics, but people on – young people in
universities, or on the streets. In Russia, of course, they have been enamoured by the idea for a long time.
In Europe, the reaction is always, what does that mean? What does that mean for Europe and does it
mean sometimes it’s sad, other times it’s less than sad? Does it mean that we stop being special? I think
this is what characterises Europe still today, we think we’re special. We are Europeans, and everyone else
isn’t and until we get rid of this, it’s going to be very difficult for Europe, I think.

Dr David Lewis
Thanks. Jue, do you have any thoughts on China and India, or…?
18 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

Dr Jue Wang
Yeah, I’ll be very brief. I think China-India, nowadays, if you read the news reports it seems like there are
loads of tension, for all sorts of different reasons, right? Because there was CPEC, China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor, India feels threatened. Also, because they are the two largest countries, so they have
some sort of competition and they have a historical problem because of border disputes. Oh, so all of
these story build up as if the relationship is a bit bumpy. But I think – personally, I don’t think that there
are fundamental problems between China and India. I think that the border dispute is not that bad. It is
under control. CPEC doesn’t – hasn’t really threatened India in geopolitical terms either.

China and India lack understanding of each other. This is what I’m most stunned about, which is how not
interested people from China and India about each other. They seems to be not very interested about
each other, not know each other’s culture very much. So, maybe these tensions because the lack of
understanding, also because of the regional geopolitical games. But again, I think – I have a rather
optimistic view about a China-India relationship. I think China has been calling for welcoming India to
join. India is a bit hesitating, but if China shows enough sincerity, or China shows a real benefit for India
to be more active in this Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor, then maybe they can have real co-
operation, yeah.

Dr David Lewis
Great, and Raffaello, you’ve got 60 seconds to sum up the future of global order and Eurasia.

Raffaello Pantucci
Well, read the book. No, two very quick points, then. One on Europe, I think the biggest problem Europe
has is that this is a big concept and where is the response to that going to come from in Europe? Is it
going to come from Macron? Is it coming from Merkel? Is it coming from Brussels? Is it coming from
London? Who knows? And I think that’s the kind of fundamental problem. I think Bruno’s entirely
right, this idea of Europe losing its specialness, I think is a big driver, but I also think an inability to
formulate a, kind of, substantial coherent response to any of these big geopolitical shifts is a real problem
that Brussels suffers from. If you look at, sort of, Mogherini’s speeches, she talks, in very grand eloquent
terms, but it’s often hard to, sort of, get the air of some of these concepts and how they’ll be realised.

On the China-India, I’d actually disagree a little bit with Jue, I’m afraid, ‘cause I think that – I think China
is slightly missing how Indian concerns are sharpening and I think it kind of makes sense, if you could
look at a map. If you think about India, where it’s positioned geographically, and you think about CPEC
as a corridor on that side, you look at Chinese investments in Nepal, you look at Chinese efforts in Bhutan,
you look at Chinese investments in Bangladesh and Myanmar, and you look at Sri Lanka and the
Maldives, if I’m an Indian Geostrategist looking at a map, I see encirclement, you know, and I think that
there is a sharpening that’s happening there, from an Indian perspective. But, you know, not meaning
here to put words in your mouth, but I think that to your question about – I think he’s actually gone,
about China – no, there he is, over there, about what does China look – I don’t think China sees India as a
threat and I think that’s the real thing. And I think there’s a real potential there that Beijing’s going to
miss a beat, in terms of relations between those two countries sharpening in a way that could really
disrupt some of these other projects that China is trying to do, projects that I think, from Beijing’s
perspective, are about developing economies, about improving connectivity. You know, even the China-
India economic relationship has a huge potential and there’s lots of Chinese companies that make a
fortune in India and there’s lots more that could be made and there’s lots more that could happen there.
19 Eurasia Rising: A New World Order?

But I think there’s a real risk there that – and a, sort of, lack of recognition that India is getting very
worried about this and it’s definitely going in a sharper direction at the moment, could really cause some
major runctions, so yeah.

Dr David Lewis
Thanks very much. We’ve covered a huge amount of ground. Thanks very much to our panel. Please do
buy the book. I think, Bruno, you’re not rushing off, so…

Bruno Maçães
No.

Dr David Lewis
…if you’ve got further questions, please do come and have a chat. Thanks very much for coming and
thanks for all your questions [applause].