42 the silk road economic belt that role for the foreseeable future. This creates very strong economic dependence and generates considerable soft power. Kazakhstan, for example, conducted more trade with Russia than with China in 2016. 217 At the same time, China is gradually increasing its security role in the area through significant arms sales to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. 218 Some Russian analysts have expressed concerns that the Belt will, over time, subsume the EEU, as the Belt offers EEU members favourable incentives, specifically capital and better integration with the world economy. 219 Concurrently, there is concern over Russian economic overdependence on China, as a result of which Russia is attempting to connect the EEU with Mongolian and South Korean regional integration initiatives and is seeking warmer ties with Japan. Indeed, Russia’s‘turn to the East’ has put it in a politico-economic position of precarious overdependence on China—this is unlikely to be sustainable and is likely to affect Russian security interests negatively over time. The interlinking of the EEU and the Belt is still unfolding, but it has—for now—brought Russia and China closer. 2.4. Conclusions The Belt has different security implications in Central and South Asia. It is perceived by the landlocked Central Asian regimes as a welcome means of boosting economic growth. In certain states, particularly Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it feeds into domestic development agendas as well. At the regional level, it does not itself exacerbate interstate disputes and could potentially serve to benefit greater regional cooperation. Indeed, cooperation in Central Asia has always been stimulated by external powers and Chinese financial incentives could induce states to begin to cooperate on, or to move past, interstate disputes that have hampered the realization of transnational economic projects. Russia has endorsed the Belt, after long consideration, as the result of its tightened geopolitical and geoeconomic parameters and economic motives. At this stage, it sees no structural conflict with its interests in Central Asia or its own regional economic framework of the EEU. Instead, the Belt and the EEU are perceived as complementary—how this unfolds in practice remains to be seen. The Belt permits Russia to diversify its economic latitude over both Chinese-initiated economic integration blocs and possible future Western ones. In South Asia, where the Belt currently only runs through one state, namely Pakistan, it has raised political temperatures. India has objected to CPEC in the strongest terms, in part due to the fact that it traverses disputed territory. To some degree, this is also an extension of a pre-existing India–Pakistan rivalry, as well as China–Pakistan competition with India over regional influence and security. India is concerned about the long-term geopolitical implications of CPEC, particularly in the face of China gaining more regional influence at the expense of India. It anticipates that investment protection and protection of future transit through Pakistan will also increase China’s security role in the region. One of the epicentres of increased regional competition could be Balochistan, the province that is home to Gwadar Port, one of the BRI’s key strategic investments. The Belt interacts with Central and South Asian security dynamics in a mutually constitutive way. While security threats from instability and terrorism could threaten 217 Jan.–Oct. 2016, Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Statistics website,<http://stat.gov.kz/faces/ wc n av_ e x t er n a l Id/ homeNu mb er s Cro s s T r a de; js e s sion id=V L J M Yv G C v Cj PBZ Ht k n g 7z hT 8B y 9 Ck x m b sn X B L L Jv p 3 T T 1 r wK 8 9 x J!-10 5 57 574 3 2!- 6 9 6 27 8 37 3?l a n g= r u&_ a f rL o o p=1 2 02 21 5 5 61 8 2 5 6 9 8 2#% 4 0% 3 F_ a f rL o o p %3D12022155618256982%26lang%3Dru%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dw5jg1rdg4_4)>. 218 SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, as from end of Feb. 2017. 219 The EEU participants concluded bilateral agreements to cooperate in the Belt framework with China without taking into consideration the EEU and Russian integration efforts and norms.