Paper long abstract:

Since a couple of years, Chinese Investors and traders have come to the Caucasus for commercial reasons.

In 2017 Georgia celebrated "the Georgia-China Friendship Day and 25 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries". The Georgian Prime Minister gave a public speech, in which he acknowledged that China is one of the largest trade partners and investors in Georgia and that "traditionally, Georgia and China have a friendly relationship based on the principles of equality, respect and cooperation". The largest Chinese foreign investor is the so-called Hualing Group, which invested more than 500 million USD since 2007 and purchased controlling shares in Georgia's Basis Bank in 2012. Interestingly, the Chinese company's home base is Urumqi. The Chinese leadership of Hualing Group and their representatives are Muslim Hui Chinese or Uighurs. According to Georgian employees of Hualing Group, who perceive themselves as Georgian Orthodox Christians, cooperation between Muslim Chinese and Georgians works very well. According to interviewees the reason is that "there is something as a cultural common ground". Thus this presentation will talk about the role of religion and other "cultural factors" in the context of interethnic exchange and business between Muslim Chinese and Orthodox Georgians in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.