How Would China Approach the European Rimland? The Pivots of Poland and the UK

Abstract

The ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative aims to connect China with the Eurasian landmass through economic corridors, rail networks, infrastructural projects and cultural exchanges, etc. In the previous chapters, I have covered various states in the Asian rimland. How would China approach the European rimland? This chapter will answer this question with the case studies of Poland and the UK . Approaching from critical realism, while I will analyse the geopolitical conflicts between Russia and the European Union since 2006 and 2014 in the light of their common realist security-seeking pattern, I will examine the bilateral relations between Poland and China, and between the UK and China through the structural lens of the European states’ strategic habitus , their international trade pattern and unique economic developmental pathways, which they are destined to be. Destined statecraft therefore highlights the necessary wisdom to not just honestly acknowledge, but also to unselectively embrace the embedded structural constraints of the bilateral relations between two engaging countries. In devising a better foreign policy for a mutually beneficial relationship, the involving countries would constitute a ‘community of shared destiny’ .