Environmental Geopolitics: The Belt and Road Initiative and China's Global Influence

China has emerged as a new global power as the world enters a new phase of multipolarity known as Multipolar World Order 2.0. Through the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the country has gained an unprecedented level of international environmental influence. This chapter introduces an environmental perspective and goes beyond the conventional analysis of the BRI and global China from the geoeconomical and geopolitical perspectives. It introduces the concept of environmental geopolitics – a country’s ability to influence environmental issues or policies in other countries, often through the use of its economic, military, or diplomatic power. Focusing on Eurasia, this chapter substantiates the concept from three contrasting but not incompatible processes that shape China’s global environmental presence: global resource extraction (e.g., energy and mineral extractives), international technology transfer (e.g., foreign investment in renewable energy and low-carbon transportation projects), and transnational environmental governance, which include both multilateral, bilateral, and transnational initiatives. It explains how China has assumed complex and somewhat conflictive roles as a new environmental power in Eurasia, bringing beneficial and detrimental environmental impacts to other countries, especially in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East.