CENTRAL ASIA IN REGIONAL INTEGRATION PROJECTS: ERTAIN ASPECTS COMPARED
Abstract
From the very first days of their independence the post-Soviet Central Asian states rich in natural resources and ruled by elites with little (if any) experience in international affairs have been objects of close attention by external players who hastened to the Eurasian geopolitical arena to put pressure on what looked like easy prey. Today multisided integration structures have been and remain a popular lever of pressure.
Their popularity is easily explained by successful European experience. Like many others, the Central Asian states succumbed to the temptation to take part in the multisided cooperation structures set up within their geopolitical and geo-economic contexts.
Since the late 1991 the Central Asian states have been involved (successfully and otherwise) in several integration structures (mainly limited to the post-Soviet expanse): the Commonwealth of Independent States (since 1991), all sorts of sub-regional Central Asian cooperation formats (1994-2005), and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (since 1999).
For the purpose of this article I have selected three multisided structures functioning in three different spheres of the Central Asian republics’ “extra regional” integration activity: the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). All of them were set up to promote economic integration among their members with the prospect of setting up free trade areas and involving the regional states in cooperation with countries outside post-Soviet Central Asia. Four of the Central Asian republics take part in all of the above structures with the exception of Uzbekistan, which left the EurAsEC in November 2008, and Turkmenistan, which has limited its involvement to the ECO.
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References
See: M.B. Olcott, A. Åslund, Sh.W. Garnett, Regional Cooperation and Commonwealth of Independent States.
Getting It Wrong, Washington DC., Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999, pp. 191-193.
In November 2008 Uzbekistan suspended its membership in the EurAsEC.
For complete results of the poll see: G. Abdrakhmanova, “Proekty regionalnoy integratsii v Tsentralnoy Azii glazami kazakhstanskikh expertov,” Kazakhstan v globalnykh protsessakh, No. 3, 2008.
See: [http://www.evrazes.com/ru/main/infopage/3/].
See: [http://www.polpred.com/country/cn/free.html?book=925&country=77&id=5332&act=text].
See: M.B. Olcott, A. Åslund, Sh.W. Garnett, op. cit., p. 192.
See: [http://www.eabr.org/rus/about/foundation/].
See: [http://gzt.uz/rus/ekonomika/ankara_tegeran_karachi_sozdayut_v_ramkah_oes_bank_s_kapitalom_v_1_
illiar.mgr].
See: [http://www.eabr.org/rus/projects/portfolio/].
See: [http://www.ecosecretariat.org/Detail_info/About_ECO_D.htm, http://www.evrazes.com/ru/main/infopage/3/].
See: R.M. Mukimdjanova, “Gosudarstva Tsentralnoi Azii i ikh iuzhnye sosedi,” Vostok, No. 5, 1996, p. 61.
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