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The argument that a crisis in Russian-Chinese relations is unavoidable has been repeatedly referred to by analysts since the 1990s. The reason for this crisis would be geopolitical competition between the two powers in Central Asia. In 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping announced the concept of the New Silk Road (referred to by the Chinese side as ‘One Belt, One Road’). At the same time, Moscow announced its efforts to build its own integration project in the form of the Eurasian Economic Union. These two developments seemed to confirm that the initial argument was correct and that the two projects were apparently fated to compete. Meanwhile, in May 2015, during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, a joint declaration was issued calling for combining the two projects and creating a formal mechanism for their coordination in the form of a joint task force. The vision of “a great Eurasian partnership …