CENTRAL ASIAN STATES AND CHINA: COOPERATION TODAY AND PROSPECTS FOR TOMORROW
Abstract
Relations with the PRC are a high foreign pol-icy priority for the states of Central Asia. The contiguity of territory and the vast eco-nomic potential of their eastern neighbor plus its weight on the international arena, including in Asia, are a key factor in the interest that the region’s sovereign republics have in a durable and friendly relationship with China, based on principles of equality, mutual consideration for the sides’
Interests, and non-interference in each other’s in-ternal affairs. The newly independent states of Central Asia see good neighborliness and all-round cooperation with the PRC as a key to accomplishing, above all, such tasks as ensuring their territorial integrity and security and providing a favorable external environment for economic advancement and internal political stability. For its part, Central Asia is part of China’s vital interests. Strengthening contacts with its re-publics is one of the PRC’s foreign policy priorities. Today, amid the U.S. presence in close proximity to the PRC’s western borders, the importance of the Central Asian sector in Beijing’s foreign policy priorities has increased considerably. Another significant factor in Beijing’s course in Central Asia is its contiguity to the Xinjiang-Ui-ghur Autonomous Region, China’s restive province.
ither side of the border between the PRC and three Central Asian states—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan—which runs for 3,300 kilometers is pop-ulated by representatives of the same ethnic groups practicing Islam: Uighurs, Kazakhs, Dungans,Tajiks, and Uzbeks. Beijing feared a “demonstration,” knock-on effect that the sovereignization of the Central Asian republics and Kazakhstan could have on Xinjiang’s indigenous population. Those concerns were caused by the fact that leaders of the Movement for the Independence of Eastern Turkestan (this is what the Uighurs call the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region) had banked on support from the new-ly independent states in the neighboring region, which, however, did not materialize. Amid an invigoration of radical Islamic forces in an area spanning North Africa to Xinjiang, China regards the Central Asian states as allies in the fight against religious extremism, especially given that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that on 15 June 2001 adopted a convention on combating terrorism, separatism, and extremism.
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References
See: V.S. Miasnikov, “Aziatskiye gosudarstva SNG v politike Kitaia i Yaponii”, in: Rossia i strany blizhnego zaru-bezhya. Vneshnepoliticheskiye orientiry, Moscow, 1997, p. 160.
The legal framework of Kazakh Chinese relations comprises a total of 105 bilateral treaties, agreements, and other documents (see: Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 23 September 2003).
Thus, Kazakhstan, which has major bauxite reserves, ships a substantial part of ore to China. Thanks to their high quality and the relatively low freight costs, chromium ores extracted in Kazakhstan are in great demand with Chinese consumers. The PRC is the third largest buyer of Kazakh copper. Kazakhstan exports up to 2.5 million tones of scrap ferrous metals to China a year through legal channels alone (see: Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 17 September 2002).
See: Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 22 October 2003.
See: Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 17 September 2003.
Thus, according to Chinese customs, the volume of trade between the two countries in 1999 was worth more than
$1 billion. These data, which were presented by the PRC ambassador to Kazakhstan at a news conference in April 2000, are substantially higher than Kazakhstan official statistics.
In the 2001-2003 period alone, Kazakh border guards detained 70 times as many illegal migrants from China as in the entire Soviet period. Nonetheless, the illegal migration flow is not declining (see: “Chaynataun v Almaty,” Kazakhstanskaia pravda,12 October, 2003).
See: Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 13 March, 2002.
The first shipment of sniper’s rifles, bullet proof vests and other military equipment was delivered to Uzbekistan by air, which helped to quickly complete an operation to destroy the gunmen in the Surkhan Darya region. Subsequently, Uz-bekistan received new shipments of Chinese made small arms and light weapons and spare parts for ground based and air weapon systems.
The Uzbek leadership did not rule out the possibility of new armed raids by IMU militants, funded by international ter-rorist centers and supported by the Taliban regime.
See: I. Karimov, Za protsvetaniye Rodiny— kazhdyy iz nas v otvete, Tashkent, 2001, pp. 340-347.
In 2004, the rotating SCO presidency is held by Uzbekistan.
For more detail, see: K. Khafizova, “Separatism in China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region: Dynamics and Poten-tial Impact on Central Asia,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (19), 2003.
“Neither in Almaty nor in any other place in Kazakhstan has a single separatist organization claiming to represent the interests of supposedly oppressed minorities in the Xinjiang province been registered or is lawfully operating,” a spokesman for the Kazakhstan embassy in the PRC said as the situation around the problem aggravated once again (see: Izvestia, 19 February,1997). Only minor separatist leaders have found refuge in Kazakhstan: The movement for the independence of Eastern Turkestan is headquartered in Turkey. Some Western experts believe that problems of Islamic extremism in Central Asia, terrorist attacks in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, and actions under the slogan of creating an Islamic state in Xinjiang were little if at all related to the activity of Uighur emigration in Kazakhstan or in Kyrgyzstan (see: D. Reetz, “Islamic Activism in Central Asia and Middle Eastern Studies,” Villanova, USA, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, Fall 1999, p. 7). According to Amnesty International, on some occasions, Kazakh authorities turned over Xinjiang Uighurs seeking asylum at the demand of the Chinese side (see: Financial Times Survey, Kazakhstan, 1 July, 1999, p. 4).
Indicative in this respect is Beijing’s position on the plan to divert some water resources from the Irtysh and the Ili rivers to oil fields in the Karamay region. Thus the Chinese rejected Astana’s attempts to invite Russian representatives for consulta-tions on the issue as Russian interests are affected by the project’s implementation (see: D. Trofimov, “Shanghai Process: From the “Five” to the Cooperation Organization. Summing Up the 1990s and Looking Ahead,” Central Asian and the Caucasus,No. 2 (14), 2002, pp. 91-92.) Discussion of this problem was entrusted to a joint Chinese-Kazakh working group of experts whose conclusions radically differed from those made by independent experts.
See: A. Klimenko, “K voprosu ob evoliutsii voennoy politiki i strategii Kitaia,” Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, No. 2,2004, p. 64.
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