| Geopolitical zones around the world today are undergoing profound reorganization,and there is a dynamic evolutionary process of countries converging towards regional integration or separating from each other outward in the region.The prevalence of regional integration and the rise of counter-integration events such as Brexit have demanded a more detailed and systematic review of the study of regional convergence-separation dynamics and degrees.While existing studies have focused on the positive assessment of the evolutionary degree of regional integration,there are few negative measures of disintegration,fragmentation,and counter-integration.The research scales are also dominated by regions,and there is a lack of research on the convergence-separation tendency at the national scale.A comprehensive,multi-scale analysis of geopolitical zone Cohesion-Separation dynamics is urgently needed.In 2013,Hu Zhiding,Ge Yuejing,and Bao Jie proposed a geoenvironmental analysis framework,which incorporates geographic environment,geo-relations,and geo-structure into the three levels of geo-environmental analysis,providing a conceptual framework and methodological tools for quantifying the geo-environment of regions and countries,as well as a normative assessment framework for analyzing the convergence and fragmentation of regions and countries.Based on the quantitative analysis framework of geoenvironment,this paper includes the elements that affect the convergence and separation of regions and countries,and systematically examines the centripetal and centrifugal factors that affect the convergence and separation of regions and countries in the context of the reality of geopolitical zones around the world,and summarizes the general rules and extracts common factors to obtain a globally applicable geopolitical zone-country convergence-separation index evaluation The geopolitical area-state cohesion-separation index evaluation index system is obtained.The index system is also applied to the empirical study of three regions around China,namely,Southeast Asia,South Asia and Central Asia,and the following conclusions are drawn from the analysis.(1)The convergence-separation index of Southeast Asia region as a whole maintains a high level of convergence,but in the past decade,the convergenceseparation index of Southeast Asia region has shown a downward trend.ASEAN has made remarkable achievements in the economic field,but the existing cooperation model can hardly take into account regional interests and the interests of different countries,and it is difficult to form a synergy in the political and military security fields.At the same time,the political layout and institutional competition among the extraterritorial powers in Southeast Asia have,to a certain extent,dispersed the cohesion of Southeast Asia as a whole.At the national level,the cohesion-separation index values of countries in Southeast Asia have a more obvious stratification:(1)Laos,Thailand,Indonesia,Malaysia,and Singapore are the five countries most inclined to cohesion;(2)Cambodia and Myanmar are in the second tier,which tend to cohesion,and both have(3)Vietnam,Brunei and the Philippines are medium convergence countries,among which Vietnam,as a link between the "new ASEAN countries" and the "old ASEAN countries",has a significantly higher convergenceseparation index value than Brunei and the Philippines;(4)the peripheral country Timor-Leste has been in a long-standing relationship with the "old ASEAN countries".The peripheral country,East Timor,has long been isolated from the Southeast Asian region.(2)South Asia tends to be the most separated among the three regions,and the convergence-separation change in South Asia from 2010 to 2019 shows a flat trend at the beginning and end and a decline in the middle.The structural contradictions of India and Pakistan and their respective outward-looking development strategies have severely fragmented the development of regional integration in South Asia.At the same time,South Asia,as the perched point of the Sino-US great power game,the US offshore balancing strategy and Sino-Pakistani cooperation to maintain the parity of India-Pakistani confrontation also increase the separation in South Asia.At the national level,the convergence-separation of South Asian countries also shows obvious differentiation: Nepal,Bhutan and India show a tendency of weak convergence,while Bangladesh,Maldives and Sri Lanka show weak separation,and Pakistan tends to strong separation.(3)The Central Asian region as a whole shows a low level of convergence,but the convergence-separation index values show an undulating trend from 2010 to 2019.The original similarity of belonging to the same unified political unit and politicalreligious ethnicity has become an important bond for the convergence in Central Asia.At the same time,the interregional cooperation framework of Russia,China,and the United States in Central Asia has objectively strengthened exchanges among Central Asian countries and provided Central Asia with a new model of "5+1" cooperation.And since 2016,Uzbekistan’s foreign policy has shifted to Central Asia,providing new growth points for convergence.At the national level,except for Turkmenistan,where there is a clear separation,the aggregation-separation indexes of the remaining four countries in Central Asia do not differ much.(i)Kazakhstan,as the most influential regional power,has the highest cohesion-separation index in the region.(ii)Uzbekistan’s Convergence-Separation Index value varies more significantly with its diplomatic tendencies and has a large swing.(iii)Multidirectional cooperation with extraterritorial countries undermines Tajikistan’s convergence.(iiii)Domestic political instability and border conflicts undermine Kyrgyzstan’s convergence tendencies.(iiiii)Turkmenistan,as a permanently neutral country with open gas cooperation and not participating in the regional integration process,is the most secessionist country in Central Asia. |
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