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  • Two Views on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

    Published on Foreign Affairs (Home | Foreign Affairs)

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    Cooperation Gets Shanghaied

    China, Russia, and the SCO
    Alexander Cooley

    ALEXANDER COOLEY is Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a fellow at the Open Society Institute.

    The recent rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) -- a mutual security assembly comprised of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- has been met with skepticism in the West. Some fear that it has nefarious intentions to control Central Asia; others worry that the West will somehow be left behind in the region if it does not engage with the SCO. Since its founding in 1996 as a forum for negotiating lingering Soviet-Chinese border disputes, the SCO's mission has broadened to promote regional security and economic cooperation, and combat what its members call the "three evils": separatism, extremism, and terrorism. As its agenda has expanded, so, too, have Western concerns.

    When the heads of the SCO countries called for a timetable for closing U.S. military bases in Central Asia at its annual summit in 2005, the SCO appeared to be positioning itself against U.S. influence in the region. Days later, Uzbekistan ousted American forces from a base in Karshi-Khanabad. And that same year, the SCO strongly condemned the Western-backed color revolutions that were sweeping across Eurasia, along with the Western NGOs that were supporting the movements.

    Five years later, however, predictions that the SCO would develop into a full-blown anti-West alliance have proven exaggerated. Despite claims of widespread cooperation, the SCO has failed to translate its official announcements into actual regional cooperation. And although China has been able to use the organization to project its influence across Central Asia, Russia has remained reluctant to deepen its participation. Subtle but key differences in the regional security priorities of the two countries have started to play out.

    Russia regards Central Asia as its "zone of privileged interests." For the past two decades, Moscow has sought to embed the states of Central Asia in a system of Russia-controlled institutions -- the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a mutual defense alliance; the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), a customs union; and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose federation of former Soviet countries. At the same time, it has actively worked to block Western actors such as NATO. China, in contrast, has been focused not so much on countering the West as on stabilizing its own western territory: the autonomous province of Xinjiang, which borders the Central Asian states.

    When the color revolutions erupted across Eurasia between 2000 and 2005, Moscow's and Beijing's security agendas were aligned. Both feared Western-backed democratization in Eurasia -- Moscow because its own influence over the regimes there would wane, and China because democratization could set a dangerous example for its hinterland.

    However, the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 revealed the real gap between Russia's and China's security agendas. Just a few days after the EU-brokered cease-fire, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived at the SCO's annual summit in Dushanbe to request support for Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian provinces. China and the Central Asian states stood firm against the request. Moscow's dealings with separatist entities did not square with China's security interests, nor with the principle of noninterference in countries' internal affairs. Similarly, Russia's efforts to grant passports to Russian-speaking residents in the disputed territories of Georgia just before the war alarmed the Central Asian states, most of which have substantial Russian populations. After this diplomatic rebuke, Moscow redoubled its efforts to promote the CSTO, an organization that includes the same Central Asian states but is safely in Russia's pocket.

    Moscow's misadventure can be contrasted with China's success in winning SCO support during the outbreak of violence between the Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese in Urumqi, Xinjiang, last July. Within a few hours of the flare-up, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs circulated a statement to other SCO members describing events in Xinjiang as "China's internal matter" and the Chinese actions as designed to "restore order in the region." Since the statement aligned with the SCO's position on internal affairs, it was quickly endorsed by all SCO members and adopted as the assembly's official position.

    As the SCO mission expands to include economic cooperation, the gap between Russian and Chinese interests has become even more apparent. Wary of Beijing's economic predominance, and thus its ability to use the SCO to its own economic ends, Russia has blocked many efforts to deepen integration. Moscow opposes Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's proposal to create an SCO free-trade area. Instead, it champions the expansion of EurAsEC, which includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Belarus but notably excludes China.

    The global financial crisis has magnified differences in Russian and Chinese economic potential and ambition. Moscow has been hard hit by the crisis; it has been forced to scale back many of its projects in Central Asia and to renegotiate the terms of unprofitable regional energy deals. Moreover, many of the projects that it has not abandoned -- such as the Kambarata hydroelectric power plants in Kyrgyzstan -- seem to be based more on political goals than commercial considerations and will likely be a drain on Russia's coffers.

    By contrast, China, whose financial system was shielded from the crisis, has stepped up its economic activities in Central Asia, dispensing substantial bilateral financing under the guise of the SCO. Beijing has recently concluded massive loans-for-hydrocarbon deals with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and has increased its investments in infrastructure in SCO states along its border, connecting them evermore to western China. And Beijing has unilaterally created a $10 billion "anti-crisis" stabilization fund within the SCO, offering cheap, short-term financing for such priority sectors as energy and infrastructure, after Moscow refused multiple requests to co-finance the fund. Moscow prefers to create a EurAsEC-controlled fund or provide what bilateral assistance it can directly to weaker states.

    Besides Russia-China tensions, the SCO faces another fundamental problem: its Central Asian members are unable -- and, in some cases, unwilling -- to fully accede to Russia's and China's plans. Moscow and Beijing remain concerned about the United States' presence in the area, but Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have concluded commercial transit agreements with the U.S. military anyway, expanding northern U.S. supply routes to Afghanistan.

    Further, the closed borders of Central Asia have important commercial value -- in the form of customs, tolls, and related jobs. The ruling elites of these countries often control border operations and other major sectors of the economy such as telecommunications and electricity. It is highly doubtful that they will willingly open them up to true external competition.

    Thus, whatever the SCO's ambition for regional cooperation and influence, coordination among its members lags far behind. As a security collective, the SCO is weak and not the aggressively anti-Western bloc it appeared to be a few years ago. As such, it makes sense for the United States to work with the SCO to engage China and the Central Asian states on select Afghanistan issues, such as securing borders and combating the narcotics trade, as part of its broader efforts to involve more regional and multilateral partners. Additionally, any Western engagement with the SCO on security matters would be useful, in as much as it undercuts Moscow's efforts to dominate the region with the CSTO.

    In nonsecurity matters, the SCO is even weaker. While it seeks international recognition for its role in integrating the region, it is unclear whether it has or ever will succeed. Ultimately, the SCO should deliver some tangible accomplishments before the West rushes to condemn or cooperate with it.
    Copyright © 2002-2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
    All rights reserved.
    Source URL: Cooperation Gets Shanghaied | Foreign Affairs
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

  • #2
    Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan

    Russia-India ties sour in Central Asia
    By Peter Lee

    Unsound strategy, mutual mistrust and opportunism are combining to frustrate the efforts of Moscow and India to blunt China's soft-power push into Russia's "near beyond" - the oil and gas-rich former Soviet republics that line the path of the ancient Silk Road from the Caspian Sea to China's doorstep at Xinjiang province.

    Russia's unwelcome efforts to cobble together a Central Asian security bloc and claim a central role in a new, multi-polar Euroasian security structure have been the main stumbling block to advancement of its interests in the region.

    It has not received a lot of help from India's opportunistic decision to play the "Great Game" on the cheap - piggybacking the military



    and diplomatic presence of Moscow and Washington in selected pro-Russian and pro-Western states in Central Asia to score points off its rivals China and Pakistan.

    Perhaps the most remarkable news in a year of Eurasian overreach by India was the revelation that New Delhi had been considering the establishment of an Indian Air Force base in, of all places, Mongolia.

    But the most significant development was perhaps the thwarting of India's signature piece of air-base diplomacy - in the tiny but suddenly crucial nation of Tajikistan - thanks to Chinese resistance and Russian mistrust.

    In many ways, the Russia-India strategic partnership looks like a bad marriage, with each side using the relationship to wrangle over, attempt to obscure, and unwittingly reveal their inadequacies.

    The clearest sign of Russia's failure to gain traction for its diplomatic initiatives in Europe and Asia was perhaps the desperately effusive welcome it gave to India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December.

    Manmohan was promised delivery of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, which has been languishing in Russian hands because of a dispute over the cost of upgrading it for delivery to India. In return - though the sequence of quid pro quo may have gone the other way - India agreed to exercise its new privileges under its US-brokered nuclear deal to buy four civilian nuclear reactors from Russia.

    The joint communique issued at the summit endorsed a key Indian aspiration - permanent membership on the UN Security Council - and extolled the virtues of an alphabet soup of multilateral talking shops from the Group of 20 to BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), RIC (Russia, India and China) and the relatively unheralded "Heiligendamm - L'Aquila Process" - that acknowledge India's growing international stature.

    It also pointedly advocated Indian membership in two organizations that have demonstrated a marked unwillingness to welcome New Delhi: the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO) and the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum.
    Students of geography will note that there is no clear justification for including India in either organization. SCO addresses the security and integration issues across common borders affecting Russia, China, and four "Stans" created by the collapse of the Soviet Union. APEC is a regional grouping designed to expedite reduction of the trade barriers erected by the notoriously protectionist economies on the western side of the Pacific Rim.

    Beyond irking Beijing and creating an additional counterweight to China - which is undoubtedly the decisive voice behind the scenes arguing for exclusion of New Delhi from the SCO and APEC - Russia's endorsement of India's desire to push its way into these two fora appears to represent an attempt to gain vitally needed support from a credible, emerging superpower for Moscow's faltering security doctrine.

    In December, Russia published a long-gestating draft treaty, the European Security Treaty, meant to replace the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the mechanism for managing disputes on the continent. The response from the West has been resounding silence, and it appears that NATO - composed largely of states that hate, fear, or mistrust Russia - will remain Moscow's nettlesome interlocutor on the continent.

    Russia has also promoted the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), composed of a hodge-podge of ex-Soviet states and Stans, as a kinder and gentler successor to the Warsaw Pact. Moscow wishes that the CSTO would be recognized by its members and the outside world as a valued and pre-eminent mechanism for injecting responsible Russian power into security issues on the fringes of the former Soviet empire, especially Afghanistan.

    Russia has been laboring with scant success to leverage its potential utility on Afghanistan into Western recognition of the CSTO. The United States and NATO members have instead concentrated on bilateral negotiations with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The existence of the CSTO is barely acknowledged.

    In its dealings with the ex-Soviet states, Russia is still haunted by the shovel-to-the-back-of-the-head foreign policy legacy of the USSR. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin succumbed to the urge to respond to Georgia's admittedly over-the-top provocations (and the West's high-handed orchestration of the independence of Kosovo) with overwhelming force in 2008.

    Russia won the war but no overt backing from ex-Soviet states. The two breakaway statelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have, aside from Russia, attracted diplomatic recognition only from Nauru, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and "Transnistria", itself an unrecognized pro-Russian breakaway republic carved from Moldova.

    Moscow also suffers from the resentment and suspicion of the Central Asian Stans and beyond over its attempts to build a culture of dependency on Russian military might and arms sales.

    India - Russia's largest arms customer - has endured legendary difficulties in its arms dealings with Moscow, culminating in the case of the Admiral Gorshkov - the long-promised (initial agreement was made early in 2004) but endlessly withheld aircraft carrier whose purchase price inflated from less than US$1 billion to well over $2 billion after the contract was signed between Moscow and New Delhi. Russia's anxiety has increased exponentially as India enjoys its new strategic partnership - and the potential for arms sales - with the United States instead.

    While Russia struggles with its diplomatic isolation and tries to enlist the support of India, it is confronted with the apparent success of a Eurasian regional grouping centered on China - the SCO.

    There is an undeniable security element to the SCO, which was formed in part to assist the rulers of the newly independent Stans in resisting both US-sponsored color revolutions such as the Tulip Revolution that eventually roiled Kyrgyzstan, and brutal Islamicist insurgencies such as the seven-year revolt that plunged Tajikistan into civil war - and ensure that governments, forces, and ideologies inimical to China's control of its restive Muslim autonomous region of Xinjiang did not take root in the region.

    The Western commentariat appears obsessed with Central Asian blocs, possibly as a threat to the US franchise as manager of the dominant NATO bloc, and periodically denigrates the SCO for its lack of cohesion and fearsome regional muscle that, in its view, renders the SCO unworthy of engagement.

    However, the point of the SCO is multi-lateral economic and security integration that creates a profitable, stable, and strategically friendly backyard for China, not to expend political and diplomatic capital in a futile attempt to weld the bickering central Asian Stans into a monolithic pro-Beijing bloc.

    China has resisted calls to use the SCO as the basis for a military alliance.

    Undoubtedly, its considerations are shaped by awareness that any military organization would be dominated by the Russians and attract the overwhelmingly hostile interest of the US. In any case, it would be virtually impossible to get the disorganized and mutually bickering Stans to agree on any security goal beyond suppressing internal threats to their current leadership - the only task for which the increasingly undemocratic republics have shown any real interest or aptitude.

    Finally, China is very anxious to keep a lid on things in Central Asia and avoid escalated conflicts that might provide inspiration, strategic space, and fighters and materiel to the aggrieved Uyghur separatists of Xinjiang.

    The SCO has a permanent security office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, of the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure, known by its unfortunate acronym of RATS, which is designed to assist the member states in combating the "three evils" of terrorism, extremism and separatism.

    Beijing's vision for Central Asia, of course, involves using its geographic, economic and financial strengths to demonstrate the advantages of stable, pro-Chinese regimes to the nervous rulers of Central Asia.

    At the October meeting of SCO prime ministers, China's Wen Jiabao reiterated a pledge of $10 billion in loans to member states to help them ride out the global financial crisis.

    China's extensive economic penetration of Central Asia is a matter of public record.

    The eyes of the world - at least the Eurasian gas pipeline-obsessed world - were riveted on the bank of the Amu Darya River on December 14 as the leaders of China, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan turned the valves ceremonially commissioning a pipeline that will carry 30 billion cubic meters per annum of Turkmenistan gas over Uzbekistan and Kazahkstan to Xinjiang and, from there, onward to China's heartland.

    It is a big, multi-national project - built at a cost of $7.3 billion and 1,833 kilometers long - whose success is attributable to China's diplomatic finesse and financial muscle in Central Asia.

    An oil industry observer nicely illustrated the distinction between promoting regional integration and assembling a geopolitical bloc, in pointing out that Turkmenistan now has a major alternative outlet to Russia's contentious and overbearing Gazprom to move its gas to market - and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will also be able to piggyback their product onto the pipeline. This was noted in the article "China's gas supply from Turkmenistan" published on December 28, 2009, by Hurriyet Daily News:

    The additional bargaining power Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan gained from diversifying their energy export routes, thanks to the Chinese assistance, strengthens their political and economic independence and reinforces regional stability and security and that achievement deserves recognition.

    Russia's riposte to the effectiveness of China's SCO-based penetration of Central Asia appears to be to assert the existence of an existential narcotics and Islamicist security crisis in Central Asia, one that can only be resolved with recourse to Russian military muscle.


    Page 2 of 2
    Russia-India ties sour in Central Asia
    By Peter Lee

    Up to a point, Russia has been able to enlist India - now firmly committed to the civilization-versus-terror narrative courtesy of its burgeoning partnership with the US - in endorsing this world view.

    Russia and India share a convergence of strategic interests in Afghanistan, one that conflicts with China's desire to let the Pashtuns sort things out in their own bloody fashion under the watchful eye of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

    Russia hopes to leverage the Afghan crisis into an acceptance of Moscow's security leadership by Stans vulnerable to Taliban-inspired Islamic militancy. India recognizes any victory by pro-Pakistan Pashtun factions, Taliban or otherwise, in Afghanistan



    as a defeat for its efforts to distract and bedevil Pakistan.

    This shared interest was reflected in the joint statement of Manmohan and President Dmitry Medvedev, which used the rhetoric of terrorism to preclude negotiating with the Taliban insurgency - the unacknowledged centerpiece of the US strategy to cobble together a political settlement and depart the benighted region.

    The communique stated:"[Russia and India] agree that the fight against terrorism cannot be selective, and drawing false distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' Taliban would be counter-productive."

    But a meaningful alliance between Russia and India appears to founder on the collision between Moscow's crude anti-diplomacy and India's ineffectual and opportunistic outreach. Their divergence of interests is neatly illustrated in the determined dance of the two powers with the tiny republic of Tajikistan.

    Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the north. The Tajik ethnic group disregards the artificial border and dominates northwestern Afghanistan, including the Ferghana Valley, the legendary bulwark of the anti-Pashtun, anti-Taliban Tajik leader and Russian asset, Ahmad Shah Massoud.

    Russia relied on Tajikistan to provide a logistical rear area for its support of the Northern Alliance during the period of Taliban domination. India pitched in by constructing a military hospital at the town of Farkhor in Tajikistan territory a scant two kilometers from the Afghan border. Massoud, mortally wounded by an al-Qaeda hit squad, died at the hospital two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

    Now, Tajikistan is the new hotspot in the global "war on terror" as it forms the centerpiece of US Central Command commander General David Petraeus' efforts to support the Afghan surge with a new supply route - the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) - bypassing Pakistan - and bringing an ocean of cash, development, graft and trouble to the impoverished mountain republic.

    Tajikistan security has deteriorated markedly as militants fleeing the Pakistan government crackdown in Waziristan have found refuge in Tajikistan's vulnerable border regions. Tajikistan's Taliban problems have also been exacerbated by the movement of militants to Afghanistan's previously peaceful northern border districts to attack the NDN.

    In addition to the US and NATO, Russia and India sense opportunity in Tajikistan, giving the local boss, Emomali Rahmon, a chance to play off one interested party against the other and settle old scores - and reveal the fragility of the strategic partnership between Russia and India in Central Asia.

    After the US-led invasion, India maintained its presence at Farkhor and, in a virtually unreported development, quietly negotiated terms in 2002 for its first significant military base outside India, at the Ayni airport on the outskirts of Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe.

    India's ubiquitous quasi-military Border Roads Organization - which increasingly finds itself operating beyond India's borders in places like Afghanistan - went to work expanding Ayni's runway. Stories were floated to anxious observers in Beijing and Islamabad that India would station helicopters or even MiG fighters at Ayni in order to project its power into the remote corners of Central Asia.

    The catch was that Ayni would be operated in rotation by Russia, India and Tajikistan, and the Indian Air Force would be reliant on Russia's good offices and logistical support to maintain its presence.

    In 2007, an Indian defense website reported:

    The Russians have given India the option of sending a squadron of Mi-17 helicopters to Ayni, with a detachment of pilots and support personnel. With Russia and Uzbekistan just next door, logistics support has been assured. Russia has also offered to build fighter maintenance infrastructure at Ayni with India. The option will be made available to India to base a squadron of MiG-29 fighters at the base, but this will not be in the near future, though the implications of this are huge - Indian fighters can be scrambled at a moment's notice for operations anywhere in the area. With mid-air refuelling support promised by the Russians, their reach will be immense.

    But what Russia giveth, it taketh away.

    Russia has been eyeing India's rapprochement with the US with considerable jealousy and anxiety. It apparently also covets Ayni (and the runway improved by India) as a platform for its own aircraft, so the Russian-backed security collective, the CSTO, can make a statement of its importance in the suddenly significant northern Afghan theater.

    Last September, India apparently tried to bypass its putative partner, Russia, and play its own bilateral hand in Tajikistan. India's President Pratihba Patil paid an unprecedented visit to Tajikistan to talk up potential economic, aid, security links and India's interest in Ayni.

    However, reports indicate that Tajikistan, responding to some combination of Russian resentment, Chinese objections, and insufficient bribery, decided to evict 150 Indian military engineers, support staff, and trainers from Ayni.

    Russia's desire to demonstrate its leverage over its putative strategic partner seems to have been decisive.

    An Indian defense website picked up a report from the News Post India:

    "This [Russian pressure] appears to be a ploy for more concessions and indulgence from India," a senior military officer associated with the Central Asian Region said. Its Moscow's way of telling New Delhi not to "stray" into the American military hardware camp, the official told IANS.

    India annually conducts defense business of over $1.5 billion [...] with Russia, and since the 1960s has acquired Soviet and Russian military equipment worth over $30 billion.

    Over the next decade, military planners anticipate purchases of over $40 billion to replace or upgrade India's predominantly Soviet and Russian defense equipment that have reached collective obsolescence.

    Moscow is understandably anxious to encash this potential and is wary of competition from other suppliers, particularly the US, in support of IAF's latest requirement of 126 multi-role combat aircraft.

    Alongside, India is deadlocked in delicate discussions with Russia wanting to renegotiate its $85 billion Sukhoi 30MkI multi-role fighter deal by demanding a higher price for the timely delivery of the combat aircraft with the agreed specifications.

    In July, reportedly at the behest of a seemingly "displeased" Moscow, Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrahon Zaripov declared that Dushanbe was not negotiating with New Delhi about permitting India a military base at Ayni.

    As the US demonstrated in its convoluted but ultimately successful (and expensive) efforts to forestall eviction from its airbase at Manas Airport in Kyrgyzstan, even apparently hopeless situations can be turned around through the right combination of concessions to Russia and payoffs to the local potentate.

    So India might still find a precarious foothold for its air force in Tajikistan, but it will remain beholden to the support of its unpopular Russian patron for its continued presence.

    It is not surprising that Russia's heavy-handed approach to Central Asia security, India's aspirations, and military sales has forestalled a genuine strategic partnership between Moscow and New Delhi that will counter the "soft power" outreach of Beijing through the SCO.

    While acknowledging seemingly every international organization that engages India - or, like the SCO, resists India's determined efforts to engage with it - the December Russia-India communique made no mention of Russia's pet geopolitical projects: the European Security Treaty or the CTSO.

    However, for the time being New Delhi seems bereft of its own strategy and resources for advancing its independent interests in Central Asia.

    As long as India continues to rely on its equivocal relationship as an auxiliary to Russia and, increasingly, the US in their great power machinations in Central Asia, it is likely that India and Russia will keep spinning their gears as China and the SCO continue to move ahead.

    Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.

    (Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

    Comment


    • #3
      OpEd from today's Japan times.


      Pipeline politics in Central Asia | The Japan Times Online


      Both Moscow and Beijing are aware of the dangers posed by political instability on their own door steps. That will reign in their competitiveness — and it should inspire other nations to get involved as well.



      Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010

      EDITORIAL
      Pipeline politics in Central Asia

      The opening early last month of a new Central Asia-China gas pipeline is the latest demonstration of Beijing's growing influence over the natural resources of the region. China's voracious appetite for energy resources has led to intriguing developments in its relationship with Russia and its Central Asian neighbors, and it is tempting to see in them a new chapter in the long-running battle for supremacy in the region. But while some take solace in such rivalries, we must recognize that all countries have a stake in the development of Central Asia and should help to ensure that it does not become a breeding ground for unrest and instability.

      Central Asia is at the intersection of Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Once situated along the main trade route between East and West, it has been a backwater for over a century, serving to link more strategically pressing areas despite possessing some of the world's largest reserves of oil, gas and metals. Countries in Central Asia have endured autocratic, repressive governments' exploitation of that natural wealth and the resulting instability. In recent years, Islamic fundamentalist groups have been effective in marshaling public anger over misgovernment. They have made the most inroads in Afghanistan, but progress is evident throughout the region.

      China and Russia have focused on the region for several reasons. They both hunger to exploit its vast mineral wealth. They worry about the danger of contagion from unrest that might spill over borders. They both seek to extend their influence, and deny similar opportunities to geopolitical rivals. Working together, Russia and China have used the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to engage the key nations of Central Asia in joint security efforts, and to promote mutually beneficial economic development.

      That cooperation has not kept Beijing and Moscow from competing with each other for influence in Central Asian capitals, however, particularly in the field of energy resources. Traditionally, energy resources from the region have flowed north and west through Russia. Dependence on Russian infrastructure makes Central Asia governments nervous, which China has been quick to exploit. Beijing has provided $10 billion in loans to finance projects in Kazakhstan and another $4 billion to Turkmenistan. During a recent visit to Kazakhstan, Chinese President Hu Jintao offered another $3.5 billion to help finance non-energy ventures in a bid to help diversify the Kazakh economy.

      Pipelines are key instruments of influence. Already operational is a 1,300-km pipeline that carries natural gas from Kazakhstan to China, the first such route to completely bypass Russia. During his December visit to Kazakhstan, Mr. Hu opened a section of the new, 1,833-km pipeline, which starts in Turkmenistan and reaches China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The entire pipeline was formally opened days later during Mr. Hu's visit to Turkmenistan.

      Once it reaches full capacity, the new pipeline will have a capacity of 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year, significantly reducing Turkmenistan's dependence on Russia. Moscow has in the past purchased about 50 bcm a year from Turkmenistan, but the two countries fought last year over the details of a gas supply agreement and who was responsible for an explosion in a pipeline in April. It was no surprise that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev followed Mr. Hu to Turkmenistan to talk energy issues.

      Beijing's gains come at Moscow's expense. Russia had taken about 70 to 80 bcm of Central Asian gas annually, which it then exported to Europe or used itself, allowing it to redirect Siberian gas to European markets — again, maximizing Russian influence in the region. Gas exports were significant not just in themselves, but also because they provided a means for Russia to acquire interests in downstream companies in Europe. With Russian natural gas production now stagnant, the loss of Turkmen gas considerably diminishes Russian leverage.

      The new pipeline also changes the dynamics of China's negotiations with Moscow to secure Russian gas. The two countries concluded a memorandum on the supply of natural gas in March 2006, but no final contract has been agreed. This matters to Japan, as it too could use the natural gas that will flow through the pipeline. At this point, however, it appears destined to go to China.

      Competition is and will remain a defining feature of the relationship between China and Russia. But both governments are also smart enough to recognize their shared interests, and work together when possible to realize them. Helping to stabilize the countries of Central Asia is one such concern. Both Moscow and Beijing are aware of the dangers posed by political instability on their own door steps. That will reign in their competitiveness — and it should inspire other nations to get involved as well. Abstract calculations of the balance of power should not overshadow the very real consequences of neglecting this critical region.
      “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

      Comment


      • #4
        my impression on the above three OpEd.





        In the past few days, three OpEd's were published on the topic of the SCO and undoubtedly it is related to the recent completion of the gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Xinjiang. This simple pipeline seems to have a profound impact on the regional security framework, Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The following are three examples of what they are saying on the street.

        First comes from Alexander Cooley’s “Cooperation Gets Shanghaied” in the current issue of the “Foreign Affairs.” Peter Lee’s “Russia-India ties sour in Central Asia” published by “Asia Times" is the second. And yesterday Japan Times released the editorial “Pipeline politics in Central Asia.”

        Cooley argues that the SOC is not the “anti-West” alliance once feared. As the Russia-Georgian war in 2008 revealed, China and Russia have a new agenda regarding the direction of the SOC. Russia's request for the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is against China’s principle of noninterference in other’s “internal affairs.” Given Central Asia’s non-integrated political, economic and cultural environment, Cooley continues to argue, “Ultimately, the SCO should deliver some tangible accomplishments before the West rushes to condemn or cooperate with it.”

        Lee took a more positive approach on China’s agenda regarding the SOC. He argues that China is taking a soft-power approach towards the SOC to create a “profitable, stable, and strategically friendly backyard.” This approach already reaps the reward of new oil pipelines and reduces the support for an independent Xinjiang. Russia and India, on the other hand, are not sure what their [great] game is regarding Central Asia as argued by Lee, especially with “Russia eyeing India's rapprochement with the US with considerable jealousy and anxiety.”

        The editorial from the Japan Times surprisingly argues that the pipelines are key instruments of influence in Central Asia. While competition will remain between Moscow and Beijing, both are aware of the dangers posed by political instability on their own door steps and thus they will work together when possible to stabilize the countries of Central Asia.

        All three OpEd's agree that the SOC is not a military alliance. If the SOC is judged in this manner it will never accomplish anything. To view the SOC as a framework to address regional issues is more accurate. How effective members of the SOC will utilize this framework in the future is still an open question in China and Russia. Russia and China do not seem to share a common goal regarding SOC's function beyond creating a "stable" Central Asia.
        “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

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