Аннотация
This article examines how the interaction between the European Union’s (EU) normative and regulatory engagement and China’s geo-economic statecraft shapes regional integration outcomes in Central Asia. Existing theories of competitive regionalism, overlapping regionalism, and regime complexity provide only partial explanations for the region’s evolving governance landscape because they pay limited attention to the interaction of distinct external integration models operating simultaneously within the same regional space. To address this gap, the article introduces the concept of Dual External Regionalism (DER), which captures the simultaneous operation and interaction of two distinct externally projected integration logics within the same regional space. In Central Asia, this duality is constituted by the EU’s regulatory–institutional model and China’s infrastructure–bilateral model, whose interaction generates differentiated and fragmented regional outcomes. The article argues that the EU promotes a regulatory–institutional integration model based on governance reform, regulatory convergence, and multilateral cooperation, whereas China advances an infrastructure–bilateral integration model centered on connectivity, investment, and state-to-state cooperation. Employing a qualitative comparative research design and process tracing, with Kazakhstan serving as a critical case for mechanism testing, the study identifies three causal mechanisms—institutional incompatibility, incentive divergence, and bilateralization. By conceptualizing external engagement as an interactive rather than actor-specific process, the article contributes to broader debates on regionalism, external governance, and Eurasian order.