Commonalities and Differences of the Language Policy in Russian-speaking Countries along “The Belt and Road”
Authors: Yang Changyu 
Published: November 2023

"Bel and Road Initiative"， which is also known as the “Silk Road Economic Belt” or the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", is a new model of national cooperation advocated by China and is considered to be the economic cooperation zone with the widest coverage in the world today. The Russian-speaking countries along "Belt and Road Initiative" refer to the countries where "Russian" is recognized by the constitution as the national language, official language, interracial common language, or exists in the form of mother tongue, minority language, etc., thus forming a "language – state – group" with Russian as its link. Due to limited length, this paper mainly studies the "three East Slavic Countries", namely Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the "Five Central Asian Countries", namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Russian-speaking countries along the "Belt and Road" have complicated historical, ethnic, political, religious, linguistic and other links. This also leads to the complexity of language governance in various countries under the background of global governance and shows commonalities and differences in the basic direction of language policy in various countries. The commonalities are mainly manifested in the hierarchy of forms of language policy, the stages in history, the politics of function and the multiplicity of objectives. The differences are mainly manifested in the language abilities of countries, the degree of national language policy and the guidance of dealing with the relationship with Russian on the premise of language policy. The commonalities and differences can help us fully understand the function of language in boosting economic exchanges, the positive and negative energy contained in language, the relationship between language and national security, and the relationship between language and cultural discourse power in the context of the "Belt and Road Initiative".The extraction of the commonalities and differences of language policy in Russian-speaking countries along the "Belt and Road "is conducive to promoting the transformation of language research from a Chinese perspective to a global perspective. The cooperation in the era of globalization is always multiple and non-unitary. In the context of the "Belt and Road Initiative", under the cooperation framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and in the process of the "Belt and Road Alliance", that is, the alliance of "Belt and Road" and the "Eurasian Economic Union", these Russian-speaking countries are not only important nodes along the "Belt and Road", but also important partners of China’s cooperation and exchanges in different frameworks of exchanges.The current prominent problems of Russian-speaking countries along the "Belt and Road" include the status of the national language and interracial common languages within the country, as well as the issues of language independence, cultural independence, and language sovereignty between countries. All these issues have essentially surpassed the basic function of language itself. In the vision of a community of shared future for mankind, the highest level of communication between sovereign countries is mutual communication and mutual learning based on mutual respect for culture. Only when we have a clear understanding of the rule of law in the countries along “the Belt and Road”, including their language policies, language plannings and language strategies, can the implementation of the "Belt and Road Initiative" be better and comprehensively supported.