Iran and Turkey are conducting their own versions of a pivot to Asia. A free-trade agreement between Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) was approved in early December. Iran and India are also bound to strike a free-trade agreement. Iran is a big player in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which is essential in driving closer economic integration between Russia and India.
The Caspian Sea, after a recent deal between its five littoral states, is re-emerging as a major trading post in Central Eurasia. Russia and Iran are involved in a joint project to build a gas pipeline to India.
Kazakhstan shows how Greater Eurasia and BRI are complementary; Astana is both a member of BRI and the EAEU. The same applies to gateway Vladivostok, Eurasia's entry point for both South Korea and Japan, as well as Russia's entry point to Northeast Asia.
Ultimately, Russia's regional aim is to connect China's northern provinces with Eurasia via the Trans-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern Railway -- with Chita in China and Khabarovsk in Russia totally inter-connected.
And all across the spectrum, Moscow aims at maximizing return on the crown jewels of the Russian Far East; agriculture, water resources, minerals, lumber, oil and gas. Construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Yamal vastly benefits China, Japan and South Korea.
Community spiritEurasianism, as initially conceptualized in the early 20th century by the geographer PN Savitsky, the geopolitician GV Vernadsky and the cultural historian VN Ilyn, among others, regarded Russian culture as a unique, complex combination of East and West, and the Russian people as belonging to "a fully original Eurasian community."
That certainly still applies. But as Valdai Club analysts argue, the upgraded concept of Greater Eurasia "is not targeted against Europe or the West"; it aims to include at least a significant part of the EU.
The Chinese leadership describes BRI not only as connectivity corridors, but also as a "community." Russians use a similar term applied to Greater Eurasia; sobornost ("community spirit").
As Alexander Lukin of the Higher School of Economics and an expert on the SCO has constantly stressed, including in his book China and Russia: The New Rapprochement, this is all about the interconnection of Greater Eurasia, BRI, EAEU, SCO, INSTC, BRICS, BRICS Plus and ASEAN.
The cream of the crop of Russian intellectuals -- at the Valdai Club and the Higher School of Economics -- as well as top Chinese analysts, are in sync. Karaganov himself constantly reiterates that the concept of Greater Eurasia was arrived at, "jointly and officially," by the Russia-China partnership; "a common space for economic, logistic and information cooperation, peace and security from Shanghai to Lisbon and New Delhi to Murmansk."
The concept of Greater Eurasia is, of course, a work in progress. What my conversations in Moscow revealed is its extraordinary ambition; positioning Russia as a key geoeconomic and geopolitical crossroads linking the economic systems of North Eurasia, Central and Southwest Asia.
As Diesen notes, Russia and China have become inevitable allies because of their "shared objective of restructuring global value-chains and developing a multipolar world." It's no wonder Beijing's drive to develop state-of-the-art national technological platforms is provoking so much anger in Washington. And in terms of the big picture, it makes perfect sense for BRI to be harmonized with Russia's economic connectivity drive for Greater Eurasia.
That's irreversible. The dogs of demonization, containment, sanctions and even war may bark all they want, but the Eurasia integration caravan keeps moving along.
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