What are the primary drivers of the relationship between Xi’s China and Lukashenko’s Belarus? The present research paper uses the historical process-tracing method to provide an answer to this question. Furthermore, it uses quantitative data analysis regarding the economic intercourse between Belarus and China. It examines whether China’s opposition regarding the unipolar American-led world order and Belarus’s security concerns are the primary drivers of the relationship between Minsk and Beijing. The present article concludes that the congruence of beliefs and Minsk’s desire to ensure survival are drawing the two countries closer together. China’s new strategy encompasses Beijing’s increasing participation in world affairs. China opposes the world order led by a single hegemon, the United States of America. In the interim, Belarus, a relatively weak state insignificant in the global balance of power, shares Beijing’s beliefs about the desired nature of the contemporary world order. However, the Belarusian economy’s condition, which relies heavily on external funding, does not allow the economic cooperation between Minsk and Beijing to thrive. China gradually increases its engagement with Belarus, yet it obscures its ambitions, for Minsk lies in Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Belt and Road Initiative vs. Baltic Sea Region. The perspectives of the container transport market in Poland

Poland is a key element of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is also an active container shipping participant in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). The aim of the article is to determine whether further development of the BRI is a threat for the Polish BSR container shipping, and vice versa. The main tools used to achieve the objectives mentioned above include a literature review, logical reasoning and statistical analysis. The results of a survey on the importance of chosen factors for the further development of the BRI in Poland, as well as the SWOT analysis of these factors are also part of the proposed study. The performed research shows that such factors as expansion of deep water infrastructure, the increase of seaport transhipment potential or competitiveness of the BSR are among biggest threats to the future of the BRI in Poland. At the same time, it seems that in the near future, the further development of the BRI will not significantly affect the container shipping in the BSR.

The paper looks at the important subject of the sister city frameworks as part of China’s public diplomacy at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic (post-2020). The first part presents the concept of public diplomacy, with special focus on the role of provincial and municipal governments in China. Relations between the local Chinese governments and other local governments are seen as “having less political color” and, according to Chinese scholars, are more effective in transmitting the national image and discursive power in the P.R.C. The second part elaborates on the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic and argues that local governments in China have been using the Health Silk Road and Digital Silk Road as a vehicle of China’s public diplomacy. This section also includes a detailed analysis of the Chinese government’s plans and actions taken by the central authorities. After a general analysis, the authors present Sichuan and Guangdong provinces’ actions as a case study. The first case study examines Sichuan and Chengdu’s efforts to promote the Health Silk Road through the “mask of diplomacy,” in the second, the authors discuss actions undertaken by Guangdong province and the city of Guangzhou as part of the Digital Silk Road.

Solving BRI-related Disputes

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an international project involving many countries around the world. The economic development and the implementation of new infrastructural and investment projects have been giving rise to a growing number of cross-border disputes. To meet these challenges China has created specialized entities, competent to solve disputes arising from the BRI. The aim of this article is therefore to identify? the latest trends in this area and to assess whether the Chinese solutions and proposed dispute resolution methods will permanently change the global landscape.

The main goal of this paper is an analysis of activities, purposes, problems of the (SCO) since its inception in order to understand what is the main reason behind its creation and existence? What are its achievements and what benefits have got each member state? Is it beneficial to all members? The hypothesis is that SCO serves only its big members, it was intended to be a China’s tool to enter Central Asia without vexing Russia. The article analyzes the activities of the SCO with the existing theories in IR in order to answer these questions. The main objective of the SCO was an attempt by the powers of the Central Asia to control the region. The SCO faces problems of distrust between its members. It is a very important instrument of guaranteeing Sino-Central Asian partnership. It is also a guarantee that China will never dominate Central Asia due to many signed agreements within the organization. With more than twenty years of history and existence, the SCO may become a real force on the international arena. The SCO’s intention is to become a world power and to construct a fairer international order. The SCO has the economic potential and political will to do it.

By assuming a proactive role in international environmental regimes and extending the ‘green’ dimensions of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has been seeking to promote itself as a leader and responsible stakeholder in global environmental governance. This article examines this development concerning the notion of China’s ‘soft power’ and, more specifically, the notion of ‘green soft power’ – which aims to bridge the traditional concept of soft power with a state’s behavior on environmental and climate issues. China presents an interesting case since it has accrued a considerable amount of green soft power through its multilateral environmental diplomacy practiced at the Conferences of the Parties (COPs), the high-profile annual United Nations Climate Change Conferences, but its patchy deployment of environmental standards in the bilateral engagements under the BRI highlights the contradictions in referring to China as a green soft power. With these ideas in mind, this article holds that in the search to understand the evolving nature of China’s responsible stakeholder role, attention should be given to exploring the notion of green soft power.

Global competition and the fate of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the world

China’s contemporary Belt and Road Initiative (the “New Silk Road”) as the leading idea of China’s foreign policy in the President’s Xi Jinping era is an attempt to continue the unique tradition of the historical Silk Road. However, in the conditions of the present day, the great ideas of the Silk Road have to face in reality the challenges of the modern global world. The author shows the contemporary challenges (internal and external) facing international projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, and becoming their typical problems. The article could be used to formulate many multi-threaded conclusions, but in the end, the hope preveils that if the ideas of the Belt and Road were liberated from the context of global political competition, humanity would gain enormously. The conditions for accelerated economic growth would be created, promoting the idea of expansion based on peaceful cooperation, which – in the current era of tensions, unrest and a number of war outbreaks in the world – is particularly needed.