Китай - Южный Кавказ: Сотрудничество в транспортно-логистических узлах «Пояса и пути»

The rapprochement of relations with the countries of the SC region was facilitated by the absence of historical wrinkles, China's advocacy of maintaining regional stability, the pursuit of the principle of non-interference in political conflicts and problems, human rights, Eurasian integration issues, the development of trade and investment activities without political preconditions, etc. Beijing, unlike Russia's Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) or Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has not sought to integrate SC countries into military-political or economic projects, or unlike the European Eastern Partnership, has not tried to involve them in democratic processes [Роллан 2018, С. 5-6]. For the countries of the SC, China acts as a global actor, taking the place of a permanent member of the UN Security Council. And non-participation in the “bloc system” (NATO, CSTO) provides extra space for foreign policy maneuvers with the countries of the SC. It is acting in this situation as a kind of “vacuum” that fills the space where the main actors of the region are powerless due to objective restrictions [Воробьева 2020, С. 652-653].

The SC, adjacent to the Middle East (ME), is also important for Beijing in terms of confronting and countering threats related to pan-Turkist ideology and Islamic fundamentalism, due to the presence of XUAR separatist ideology supporters among Muslims living in the region [Жильцов, Алексанян и др. 2019, C. 7-25]. The SC could become a "corridor" through which the ideologies of Islamic fundamentalism could spread from the ME to XUAR and impact China's Uyghur population [Skiert-Andrzejuk 2018, P. 86]. This concern is not completely groundless because in the ranks of the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIS), such prominent people as Tarkhan Batirashvili (Umar al-Shishani) or Muslim Margoshvili came from the Ahmed `region` of Georgia (Pankiskoe Valley). At the end of 2017, 900 people from Azerbaijan and 200 citizens of Georgia participated in ISIS in the ME [Воробьева 2020, С. 660].

Developments in the international arena since the 2010s have highlighted the geostrategic and geopolitical relevance and importance of the SC in terms of controlling East-West, North-South security lines, trade crossroads and transport corridors [Ögütçü 2015, P. 103]. It is known that some countries in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea are rich in natural resources, especially oil and natural gas, for energy imports to support China's economic growth [Ван, Вань 2013]. So, the further interaction of China with the SC can increasingly rely on its desire to use energy resources, trade and transport corridors [Muzalevsky 2010, P. 13].

China's presence in the SC became more tangible when the attention of the traditionally `active` players there - Russia, the US and the EU - shifted to the Ukraine crisis, the ISIS, the Iran nuclear `issue`, and when the countries of the `region` began to look for new economic partners in the background of the relative “decline” of Russian power in the `region` and the inability of Iran and Turkey to assume a more significant role [Роллан 2018, С. 23]. Against the background of the global confrontation between the West and Russia, China could become a new major player in the SC, significantly rearranging the existing geo-economic configurations with its influence on the regional processes [Егиазарян 2004, C. 70]. However, the SC did not have the same geostrategic and political significance for China as for Russia, so Beijing was not seen as a threat by Moscow [Skiert-Andrzejuk 2018, P. 87]. And indeed, China's objective in practice was not to compete with Russian influence, but rather to secure its economic interests in the region and increase Chinese investment [Lambert 2018].