Towards a Silk Road Union?

The concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt put forward by China in September 2013 has two major dimensions: ‘the Road' and ‘the Belt'. This article argues that building ‘the Road' may lead to: (a) the transformation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) from hitherto primarily security-oriented alliance into ‘the Belt', i.e. an organisation pursuing also deep economic cooperation; and (b) the establishment of a Silk Road Union based on partnership between China and the Eurasian alliance, constituted by two most important regional integration groupings created in the post-Soviet area, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Eurasian Economic Union