Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration

• In Event: China Under Xi Jinping: Internal and External Challenges

Abstract

A Eurasian transformation is underway, and changes within China are its catalyst, this paper argues. Key inflection points, beginning with the Four Modernizations and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and culminating in China’s response to the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2014 annexation of the Crimea, are triggering tectonic shifts across the Eurasian continent, particularly in the relations among China, Russia, and the European Union. Revolutionary developments in energy supply and demand; logistics; communications; and development finance—preceding the Belt and Road Initiative yet intensified by it—are driving changes in corporate behavior, as well as policy, with fateful long-term implications for global affairs.

Author

• Kent E. Calder, Johns Hopkins University