354 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 5 / 2015 Tibet), in addition to new markets for its exports. China is also responding to the circumstances of its maritime environment. In the face of the US “pivot” and the reinforcement of its capabilities in the Pacific following withdrawal from Afghanistan, it could mitigate that pressure -the same could happen with Japan- by extending its projection towards central Asia. Thus it would avoid being caught in a zero-sum game with the United States in eastern Asia. It could expand its interests in a new axis that would allow it to rebalance its own geopolitical position,53 thus gaining a space free from US pre-eminence, with the subsequent reinforcement of its influence as a major Eurasian power.54 Meanwhile, Russia would be obliged to react so as not to end up being excluded from these interconnected networks. In this context it signed two historic energy agreements with Beijing in May and November 2014 (without prejudicing rapprochement with China over the Ukrainian crisis).55 On the “Maritime Silk Route”. Some incidents led to Beijing attempting to neutralise the perception of a Chinese threat and expand its influence in Southeast Asia. In the month following Xi’s Central Asian tour, ASEAN countries attracted the attention of the Chinese leaders: the president visited Malaysia and Indonesia, while the Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, travelled to Brunei, Thailand and Vietnam. Emulating its previous suggestion to the republics of central Asia, with a similar message of integration Xi and Li proposed the construction of a “Maritime Silk Route” across the South China Sea. Addressing the Indonesian parliament, -a first by a foreign leader- after reiterating the Chinese objective to create a “community with ASEAN”, Xi described three major factors: macroeconomic coordination, financial cooperation and the establishment of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, (AIIB).56 The central focus of this new bank was to be to finance connectivity between the member States and between the region and China by means of an integrated system of transport by road and rail connecting the PRC with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, as far as Malaysia and Singapore. 53 See WANG Jisi. “ ‘Marching Westwards’: The Rebalancing of China’s Geostrategy”, International and Strategic Studies Report, Center for International and Strategic Studies, Beijing University, no. 73, 7 October 2012. 54 On China and Central Asia, see LARUELLE, Marlène and PEYROUSE, Sébastien. The Chinese Question in Central Asia: Domestic Order, Social Change, and the Chinese Factor, New York: Columbia University Press, 2012; and KARRAR, Hasan H. The New Silk Road Diplomacy: China’s Central Asian Foreign Policy since the Cold War, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009. 55 MARANTIDOU, Virgina and COSSA, Ralph A. “China and Russia’s Great Game in Central Asia”, The National Interest, 1 October 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/china-russias-great- game-central-asia-11385 (last consultation 16-1-2015). 56 “Speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Indonesian Parliament”, Jakarta, 2 October 2013, http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013-10/03/c_133062675.htm (last consultation 16-1-2015). http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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