historically, the formation of the silk road clearly involved geo-political factors; eurasia has been one of the focal points and targets of geopolitics. however, the china-proposed belt and road initiative (bri) doesn’t serve as anything similar to a small

of geopolitics; instead, it reflects china’s international role as a responsible great power and thus has transcended geopolitics.

geopolitical theories and pract have been existent in the world historical development since ancient times. as a discipline, geopolitics began and developed its theoretical system and principles mainly in the west during the late 19th century and has gradually become a highly im-pactful theory because it persisted past two world wars, the cold war, and other major changes in the international political power structure. it has produced generations of strategists and formed a unique strategic thinking and policy system, due to the clear imprints inevitably left by great world powers in its development, and especially due to the influ-ence of the geopolitical concepts and terminology of the west during the past 100 years, such as the heartland, sea-power theory, rimland, etc. it functions as a new theory to explain the international relations after the end of the cold war, since its concept and doctrines were orig-inated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the crucial historical stage that witnessed the collapse of the bipolar power structure and the end of the cold war.

this chapter mainly expounds upon geopolitical and geo-economic thinking, firstly involving two theories, namely the eurasian world island theory proposed by british geographer mackinder and the rimland theo-ry proposed by dutch strategist spykman, both of which emphasize the importance of eurasia as an area of concentration of strategic resources although the two theories are not exactly the same. brzezinski, a contem-porary american strategist, claims that whoever firmly controls eurasia can dominate the world. in short, the above theories emphasize the high correlation between geography and strategic development.