The results of Armenia’s parliamentary elections in June dealt a major blow to Russia’s efforts to reassert its influence over the South Caucasus, with implications extending well beyond Moscow, Washington, and Brussels.
For Beijing and Tokyo, which have quietly expanded their presence in the region as a land bridge connecting Asia and Europe, the election result reaffirming Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s authority carries considerable geoeconomic importance.
Pashinyan’s decisive victory represented a clear popular rejection of rivals associated with the Kremlin and marked a significant failure of Moscow’s attempt to install a more sympathetic leadership in Yerevan.
It also amounted to a setback for Tehran, which has long been one of Armenia’s strongest supporters because of their shared hostility toward Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s largely secular Shia society is viewed as a direct counterpoint to the authoritarian Islamic model promoted by Tehran.
Iran and Russia are bound by defence and security agreements and a regional partnership built largely around resisting Western and Turkish influence, an approach Armenian voters rejected in the election.
With Russia severely weakened by the war in Ukraine and Iran preoccupied with its continuing confrontation with the United States and Israel, the two traditional powers of the South Caucasus are more constrained than at any point in recent decades.
That vacuum is particularly important for Asian economies that have spent the past several years searching for trade routes that do not pass through Russian or Iranian territory.
The Middle Corridor dilemma
Since 2022, China has intensified diplomatic and commercial efforts to support the Middle Corridor, the trans-Caspian route linking China with Europe through Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, and Turkey, while deliberately bypassing sanctioned Russian rail networks.
Beijing views the corridor as a safeguard for the Belt and Road Initiative, ensuring that goods can continue flowing westward even if Russia remains under sanctions. It could also serve as a long-term strategic lifeline in the event of a broader confrontation with the West.
Georgia and Azerbaijan have long been central to this plan. Armenia, historically peripheral to such calculations, is becoming increasingly important as Georgia moves closer to Russia.
Notably, a Chinese company recently withdrew from a project to develop a deep-water port at Anaklia on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.
A lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity would create new options for transporting goods across Armenian territory and strengthen the stability of the wider corridor on which Chinese logistics companies and state planners increasingly depend.
Such an arrangement, however, would largely be shaped by Washington rather than Beijing, a formula China is unlikely to welcome despite benefiting from the added stability.
Beijing is therefore expected to continue making discreet infrastructure investments across Central Asia and the Caucasus to preserve its influence over the corridor’s future, while allowing Washington to bear the diplomatic cost of mediating peace.
For Japan, the objective is less about competing with the Belt and Road Initiative and more about diversifying supply chains.
Tokyo has worked in recent years to deepen ties with Central Asian countries through the Central Asia plus Japan framework, seeking to reduce dependence on China-dominated trade routes and diversify access to critical minerals and energy resources.
A more stable South Caucasus, with a lower risk of renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and fewer opportunities for Russian or Iranian disruption, would make the land bridge to Europe and the Gulf more attractive to Japanese trading companies and manufacturers seeking to reduce their exposure to Russian and Chinese corridors.
Iran’s declining position makes this shift even more significant.
Despite its limited role, Tehran has served as an alternative transit and energy partner for Asian economies seeking to avoid complete dependence on Gulf maritime routes through the Strait of Hormuz.
But Iran, facing growing pressure along its northern borders and increasing isolation in the Gulf, has become a less reliable partner in that role.
This is encouraging energy planners across Asia, including in Beijing despite China’s 25-year strategic partnership with Tehran, to accelerate the diversification of overland routes through the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The battle over constitutional reform
None of these scenarios, however, is guaranteed. Armenia’s election result marks the beginning of a new process rather than its conclusion.
Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party secured 49.8% of the vote, winning 64 of the 105 seats in parliament. It retained its majority but fell short of the two-thirds threshold required to amend the constitution, complicating efforts to conclude a final peace agreement with Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan has made its approval of a peace treaty conditional on constitutional changes in Armenia removing any language that could be interpreted as a claim over Nagorno-Karabakh, which Baku regained control of in 2023.
The Armenian constitution contains no direct claim to Azerbaijani territory. The dispute instead concerns its preamble, which endorses the principles and aspirations of the 1990 Declaration of Independence.
That document explicitly refers to a December 1, 1989 decision on the “reunification” of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
As a result, Armenia’s constitutional framework remains linked to a founding document that contains a claim over internationally recognised Azerbaijani territory.
Without constitutional reform, any peace agreement could be overturned by a future government, undermining the long-term stability that Asian economies dependent on transport corridors would require before committing substantial investment to the region.
The author argues that constitutional reform would be neither exceptional nor unprecedented, noting that numerous countries have amended their fundamental laws in pursuit of peace or strategic objectives.
Ireland amended its constitution as part of the Good Friday Agreement, creating a cornerstone of the peace settlement with the United Kingdom.
Greece similarly insisted for years on constitutional changes in Macedonia, eventually leading to the Prespa Agreement and paving the way for North Macedonia to join European and transatlantic institutions.
The most realistic path for Pashinyan, the author argues, would be to form a narrow coalition focused exclusively on peace-related provisions, presenting them as technical requirements for international normalisation rather than partisan concessions.
His success in securing the additional votes will determine whether Armenia’s westward orientation and the broader opening of the South Caucasus corridor become irreversible.
For Asian governments and companies assessing Eurasian trade, energy, and mineral routes over the next decade, Armenia’s constitutional dispute is not merely an internal matter in a former Soviet republic.
It is a genuine test of whether one of the few remaining alternative corridors between Asia and Europe can achieve lasting stability and of which powers will ultimately establish its rules.
China and Japan both have strong incentives for the peace process to succeed, despite their limited ability to control its direction.
Moscow is already working to obstruct it, while Tehran watches with concern.
The author concludes that Beijing and Tokyo should follow developments with equal attention and work toward a South Caucasus finally capable of serving as a stable and effective trade corridor.
www.economies.com