STAGES OF CHINA’S ECONOMIC POLICY IN CENTRAL ASIA
Abstract
Close economic relations have existed between China and Central Asia (CA) for many centuries. During the heyday of the Great Silk Road (right up until the middle of the 2nd century AD), state formations located in the region and around it (for example, today’s Xinjiang) served as a link between China and Europe and were developed economic, trade, and financial centers.
For a long time, the driving force behind trade in these territories was China, which was also a vital source of scientific knowledge and advanced technology.
In the second half of the 19th century, CA belonged to the Russian Empire, and its relations with China, including Xinjiang, began to falter. Later, the Central Asian region became an integral part of the Soviet Union and its independent relations with China were essentially reduced to naught. Direct economic relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and CA could not develop until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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At the turn of the 1980s-1990s, there was a noticeable cooling off in relations between China and the West, which was highly displeased about the then Chinese leadership’s harsh suppression of the attempt to carry out a “democratic rev-olution” in the PRC in 1989 (the events on Tiananmen Square).
By the mid-1990s, Beijing was forced to radically re-examine many principal issues of its foreign policy. This was largely prompted by the aggravation in the situation involving Taiwan in 1995-1996, which was followed by another twist in the Sino-American standoff and the financial crisis of 1997-1998 in Southeast Asia. It is presumed that these events clearly showed the Chinese leadership that, in the absence of a more active and aggressive foreign policy, China would be unable to achieve a breakthrough in its comprehensive economic development and would remain extremely vulnerable in the glo-balization era and in the context of forming a unipolar model of international relations under the U.S. aegis.
Approximately $2.55 billion in the development of oil fields in the Aktobe Region, $4.3 billion in the development of the Kumkol group of oil fields, $0.8 billion in the construction of the Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline, $0.12 billion in the building of a gas pipeline in the Aktobe Region, and $0.2 billion in the development of wireless communications.
$293 million for building an electrolysis plant, $200 million for a telecommunication project, and $60 million for purchasing Chinese transportation technology.
Including $70 million for building the Kyzyl-Kiysk cement plant, $22.1 million for building a cellulose-paper factory in Tokmak, $22 million for delivering a large consignment of Chinese buses, and from $2 to 4 million for delivering gar-bage-disposal technology and a small consignment of buses.
When estimating Chinese investments in Kyrgyzstan, in addition to direct investments in specific projects, grants to the government and the purchase of shares of Kyrgyz state companies are also included. As a result, Chinese investments include $7.5 million in rebuilding the Irkeshtam-Osh highway, from $8-10 million in a joint enterprise for assembling tractors in Kara-Balta, from $4-8 million in a joint coal-producing enterprise in the Osh Region, $1.1 million in purchasing shares of JSC Batkenneftegaz, $13.5 million in a series of grants for developing Chinese agricultural technology, modernizing Kyrgyzstan’s agricultural infrastructure, and building schools and hospitals, and a grant for $7.4 million for organizing a SCO summit in Bishkek (2007).
Including $55 million from Britain’s Avocet Mining Plc., as well as $26.6 million from a private company, LLC Vavilon-T.
Including $267 million for building the high-voltage South-North power transmission line, $55 million for build-ing the high-voltage Lolazor-Khalton power transmission line, and $282 million for rebuilding the Dushanbe-Khujand-Chanak highway, including laying of the Shakhristan tunnel.
When estimating Chinese investments, grants were also taken into account. The PRC’s investments include a$30 million government grant for building the Shar-Shar tunnel and $6 million in investments in a gold-bearing field (in the Penjikent district).
See: N. Kasenova, Novyi mezhdunarodnyi donor: pomoshch Kitaia Tadzhikistanu i Kirgizstanu, French Institute of International Relations, Russia Center/NIS, Paris, January 2009, p. 19.
Including $132.8 million for delivering Chinese oil and gas equipment, $300 million for rebuilding the Maryazot production association, $68 million for building a glass combine, $174.5 million for delivering Chinese transportation tech-nology, $29.4 million for delivering Chinese telecommunication equipment, and $2.4 million for building a silk-spinning factory.
Including $354 million in developing the Bagtyyarlyk gas-bearing territory, $88 million in building the Turkmen section of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline, $2.2 million in the pharmaceutical industry, and a $1.8 million grant for building a factory for producing silkworm eggs.
Chinese loans in Uzbekistan include $46.4 million for projects in the electricity industry, $28 million for the tele-communications industry, $29.2 million for building a soda plant in Karakalpakstan, $5.5 million for modernizing a house-hold refrigerator plant in Samarkand, and $58.5 million for purchasing hydro-ameliorative technology in the PRC.
Chinese investments in Uzbekistan include $48 million in the authorized capital of JV UzCNPC Petroleum,$83 million in prospecting of several oil and gas-condensate fields on the Ustiurt plateau and in the Bukhara-Khiva re-gion, $13.7 million in preparations for developing the fields of the Aral Sea, approximately $35 million in building the Uzbek section of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline, and $15 million on modernizing cement production.
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