Paper short abstract:

China is changing the power relations in Eurasia through the Belt and Road. Eurasia becomes a region, where multiple interests clash. Multi-level governance that yields a local, sustainable development can complement the BRI in regionalization and greater economic development.

Paper long abstract:

The significance of regions is increasingly accompanied by steering mechanisms between globalization and regionalization (Koller & Voskresenski, 2019). Throughout the last decade, development geographies are under constant change towards a multipolar order, especially in Asian regions. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s attempt to initiate growth in Western China and Eurasia that eventually creates a new power-equilibrium (Chun, 2017; Harper, 2019). Those processes to higher connectivity and mobility within a greater region (regionalization) and entail institutional region-building (regionalism) (Söderbaum, 2016). Although the BRI seems partially successful, current challenges relate to limited transparency and procurement, need for standards, questions on the regional impact (Pechlaner et al., 2020), institutional governance structures or China’s leadership (Beeson & Li, 2016) or economic integration (Boamah & Appiah-Kubi, 2019).

Eurasia posses a strategic position in China's efforts as an investment recipient and transit region (Harper, 2019). The role Eurasia plays and its economic integration is uncertain. Eurasia is all the more advised to perceive the BRI as a chance for greater transnational connectivity within Eurasia, as it includes complementaries economies of similar cultural background and development status.

Scholars assume that regionalization and the maintenance of local interests along with the BRI are only sustainable if officials and researchers combine processes of regionalism and multi-level governance (Kettunen, 2019; Thees, 2020). Therefore, the research question evolves: How can transnational governance mediate in regionalism to assist a locally-bound regionalization within the NSR? Exploratory research with interviews and scenario analysis reveals learnings on the integration of Eurasian countries.