Regional integration via major powers: russian eurasian economic union versus chinese silk road economic belt versus american new silk road project

Great and regional powers have been trying to influence/control Central Asia’s (CA) political-economic fabric and development for the sake of their own strategic interests via different politico-economic schemes. Especially, Russia, China and the US are competing to inject their individual regional integration models for reducing the influence of other great and regional powers. These models fall in the category of extra-regional integration projects, which promote different structured approaches. This paper explores the viability and major impacts of great power-induced regional integration and their repercussions. It argues that these projects are developed by and biased towards preserving the influence of major powers, and lack viable framework to bring both global and regional players into a path of long-term cooperation. Even if the great powers’ regional integration approaches are divergent from each other, their common point the asymmetry they apply when they are approaching the region. Primarily they prioritized their own strategic interests while discarding CA states’ expectations to a significant extent. However, if implemented successfully, it cannot be ruled out that these projects may bring socioeconomic benefits to CA countries at the expense of political independence