China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the Contested Eastern Neighborhood: A Case Study of Ukraine
Journal: Lex Portus
Year: 2021

In this article I argue that the increasingly three-sided competition for influence – between Russia, China and the West in and over Ukraine – has created a new space for autonomous decision making and can increase Ukraine’s own agency when it comes to strategic geopolitical and geo-economic choices in its foreign policy. Relying on competition theory to determine competitive influence-seeking policies of great powers and strategies of smaller states, I propose a ‘smart leadership’ strategy for