Nadine Godehardt

(Research Fellow of Asia Division,

German Institute for International and Security Affairs)

Author

Dr. Nadine Godehardt is Research Fellow of Asia Division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin. She has expertise in China’s foreign policy, regionalization in Central Asia and East Asia as well as theories of international politics. During 2008 and 2012, she was the Research Fellow at GIGA German

Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg. She got her PhD degree in political science in University of Hamburg in 2012. She was a short-term guest scholar in China Foreign Affairs University in 2012 and 2013, and in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2010.

Abstract

This paper takes a German perspective on the new Silk Road Economic Belt initiative that was announced by Xi Jinping at the Nazarbayev University in September 2013. Firstly, I discuss the (potential) geographic scope of the initiative which also underscores a changing pattern in China’s regional foreign policy, particularly China’s relationship with countries in Eurasia. Secondly, I highlight the greatest challenges for the implementation of the new Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. In this regard, I argue that the political stability within the wider region is one of the biggest factors of insecurity for the implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. Lastly, I aim to present some ideas of how the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative could further promote a Chinese-European dialogue, in other words a Chinese-European Silk Road Dialogue, about future cooperation in Eurasia.