CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 58

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE: WHAT IS BISHKEK’S HEDGING STRATAGEM?
contributed to a dearth of foreign investments, despite Kyrgyzstan’s
considerable hydropower resources and its location in the heartland of
Central Asia. 48 Recognising the necessity to enhance its land-linkedness, in
order to generate economic development, Bishkek is committed to regional
cooperative frameworks – namely (1) the EAEU initiated by Russia, as well
as (2) the BRI launched by China.
(1) In 1994, Nursultan Nazarbayev, former President of Kazakhstan,
emphasised the significance of Eurasian integration for the post-Soviet
republics, commencing subordinate bargaining interaction with Russia as
dominant. 49 The latter has since then been engaged in shaping the regional
institution-making within the framework of the Commonwealth of
Independent States by establishing numerous sub-organisations. This
involved the foundation of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC)
and the finalisation of the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and
Kazakhstan in 2010, in order to ensure the harmonisation of economic
interests and policy coordination. Stressing the importance of embracing
multilateral cooperation and diversifying trade exchanges from a resource-
based to an innovation-based economy, Moscow, Minsk and Astana signed
the Declaration on Eurasian Economic Integration to initiate the Common
Economic Space (CES) 2012. The signatories aimed to provide unified
legislation, free movement of goods, services, capital and labour, subsidies
for industry and agriculture, transport, power engineering, tariffs of the
natural monopolies, as well as several privileges for entrepreneurs (such as
free access to the common market, free and independent choice of
registration within the CES and the sale of their products in any CES
member state). The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) has been set up
as a supranational organ in this context to regulate the economic relations
within the CES. Thereupon, the treaty on the creation of the EAEU was
signed, having emerged from the hitherto existing EurAsEC.
Acknowledging the potential economic benefits, Armenia’s and
Kyrgyzstan’s accessions were approved in 2014 and 2015 respectively by
insinuating their interests and preferences in bargaining processes with
Russia and its subordinates that have already been recognised as member
states. 50 Nevertheless, Bishkek was aware that not joining was not an option,
as economic isolation was widely feared.
48
Ibid., xv-xvi
Mikhail Alexandrov, Uneasy Alliance: Relations Between Russia and Kazakhstan in the
Post-Soviet Era, 1992-1997 (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 1999): 229.
50
Tigran Sargsyan, “Eurasian Economic Integration: Facts and Figures”, Eurasian Economic
Commission, 2016,
http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/Documents/Брошюра%20Цифры%20и%20факты%
20ит%20(Англ).pdf (accessed June 23 2018), 3-30; Sadri, “Eurasian Economic Union
(EEU): Good Idea or A Russian Takeover?”, 553-561; Stobdan, Central Asia. Democracy,
Instability and Strategic Game in Kyrgyzstan, 142-147; Entina, “Russia's Return to the
International Arena: How the Eurasian Economic Union Should Be Estimated?”, 536-544.
49
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