CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 52

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE: WHAT IS BISHKEK’S HEDGING STRATAGEM?
“Contemporary Great Game”. The latter suggests an overlapping of
hierarchies, potentially a dual collaboration of regional management as each
dominant assumes various responsibilities and respective projects hemmed
to one another. 27 As both share a conditioned rivalry with the West, in
particular, the United States of America (USA), the Sino-Russian entente
forms the basis of a global balance against US hegemony, a far greater
priority than the “Contemporary Great Game”. 28
Despite the prospects of rivalry, peaceful change or gradients of
cooperation, Russia and China are competing for regional influence,
denoting a range of hedging dynamics for the subordinates of Central Asia
with substantial bargaining potential. Subordinates are seeking various
political/security and economic incentives due to the “three evils” of ethnic
separatism, religious extremism and terrorism and their dependency on the
export of respective natural resources further aggravated by their landlocked
geographical location. 29 Therefore, numerous hierarchical apparatuses have
been established, in order to enhance the bargaining dynamics in both
dominant-subordinate and dominant-dominant interactions, namely the
Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the security domain or respectively the
Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the BRI that conform to economic
institutionalisation. 30 The subordinates are expected to bandwagon from a
27
Li Yongquan, “The Greater Eurasian Partnership and the Belt and Road Initiative: Can the
Two be Linked?”, Journal of Eurasian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2018): 94-99.
28
Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Steven E. Lobell and Norman M. Ripsman, “Is Peaceful Change in
World Politics Always Desirable? A Neoclassical Perspective”, International Studies Review,
Vol. 20, No. 2 (June 2018): 283-291; Alexander Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional
Hedging: China-Russia Relations”, 375-397; Robert Ferdinand, “China and Russia:
Converging Responses to Globalization”, International Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 4 (2007): 655-
680; Bobo Lo, Axis of Convenience. Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics (London:
Chatham House, 2008); Robert Sutter, “China-Russia Relations. Strategic Implications and
U.S. Policy Options”, National Bureau of Asian Research, NBR Special Report No. 73
(September 2018); Vidya Nadkarni, Strategic Partnerships in Asia. Balancing without
Alliances (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 53.
29
Zhao Huasheng, “Central Asia in Chinese Strategic Thinking”, in Thomas Fingar, The New
Great Game. China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2016), 171-189, here 173.
30
Yevgeniya V. Klevakina, “Organizatsiya Dogovora o kollektivnoy bezopasnosti v
kontekste national'nykh interesov stran-uchastnits [The Collective Security Treaty
Organisation in the Context of National Interests of Its Participants]”, Vestnik
mezhdunarodnykh organizatsii, Vol. 41, No. 2 (2013): 111-129; Charles E. Ziegler, “Central
Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and American Foreign Policy From
Indifference to Engagement”, Asian Survey, Vol. 53, No. 3 (May/June 2013): 484-505;
Stephen Aris, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: 'Tackling the Three Evils'. A
Response to Non-Traditional Security Challenges or Anti-Western Bloc?”, Europe-Asia
Studies, Vol. 61, No. 3 (May 2009): 457-482; Roy Allison, “Protective Integration and
Security Policy Coordination: Comparing the SCO and the CSTO”, The Chinese Journal of
International Politics, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Autumn 2018): 297-338; Ekaterina Entina, “Russia's
Return to the International Arena: How the Eurasian Economic Union Should Be
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