Central Asia: Unraveling The Matrix Of Chinese Dragon And Russian Bear

Vishal Ranjan Jan 07, 2020

Even as the Cold War wound down and fresh new independent republics burst forth from the wombs of the erstwhile USSR, ‘the great game’ in the post-Soviet Eurasia or more particularly Central Asia had never really come to a permanent close. As Russia strove to rebuild itself with a view to possibly resurrect the former imperial glory of the Soviet era, it has found itself faced with a new player on the horizons, the People’s Republic of China. Only this time, the new rival in Central Asia was also in many ways a potential ally in shaping a cooperative multilateral global order.

The question really is whether a resurgent Russia can allow a rising China to operate freely in Central Asia, reckoned as the former’s backyard while feeding off the fruits of latter’s economic successes, notwithstanding the stuttering Chinese economy in recent years. Another question that comes to mind is how the five Central Asian nations have responded to the Sino-Russian inroads, whether competitive or cooperative, into their region.

Central Asia: The extension of China’s geopolitical imprint

For China, Central Asia forms a key lynchpin of its Eurasian strategy and indeed vision of a Sino-centric regional order. Apart from sharing a border of more than 4,000 km with Russia, it also directly shares borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Also, given the location of the perennially restive Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Central Asia also inevitably imparts a context to linkage between the country’s internal and external security policies. As Xinjiang has graduated from being Thierry Kellner’s ‘disputed periphery’ to disturbed periphery, and separatist sentiments morph and branch out into wider terror outgrowth, the Chinese government has sought to tackle it internally through a mix of repression and economic development. However externally, it has had to reach out to Central Asian nations such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan extracting guarantees not to provide help or sanctuary to Uighur or Kazakh separatists. With so-called Islamic terror attaining a worldwide notoriety post-9/11, the expediency of counter-terrorism became a natural tool in the hands of the Chinese to confront separatism and also to project itself into the Central Asian region. Off late, there have been indications of Chinese troops being present in Tajikistan and even possibly Afghanistan.

The recent Chinese overtures towards Taliban and the attempt to make inroads into Afghanistan also signifies Chinese Central Asian ambitions. Then particularly from the Russian standpoint, the steadily expanding Chinese footprints in Far East thorough leasing of huge tracts of uncultivated agricultural land granted to Chinese investors would certainly be a matter of concern. Purely in terms of population numbers, while Russia’s Far East has about 7 million residents, the neighbouring Chinese province of Heilongjiang has over 38 million people.

The March of Chinese Economic Triumphalism

There is no doubt that the sustained Chinese economic march has rubbed off on the Central Asian countries as well as Russia. On the back of a double-digit economic growth for more than a decade and prompted by the need to expand its sources of energy supplies, China has made considerable investments into the oil and gas infrastructure projects in the region. However Chinese interests have not been only confined to energy. Their total trade with Central Asian countries has galloped to about $41 billion in recent years as opposed to Russia’s trade with Central Asia which is at about $25 billion.[1] In fact, China has gone on to surpass Russia in terms of total trade with all Central Asian countries barring Kazakhstan. What’s more, China has become the largest trading partner of Russia itself. Then in terms of investment, it has even become the largest source of FDI into Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan while also outstripping Russia as the fourth-largest investor in Kazakhstan.

So now that China has decided to showcase the grand narrative of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the name of economic and infrastructure building through land borders in Central Asia while also invoking the golden legacies of yore through the New Silk Road, the picture is not all that promising as it apparently seems. Capital-deficient Central Asian countries have sometimes, willy-nilly, fallen for Chinese loans and investments, many of which have turned unsustainable leading to debt spirals and debt traps. All the five Central Asian countries have incurred external debts owing a great chunk to China with several projects hitting a roadblock. Notably, Kazakhstan which was the first to join the BRI bandwagon by tying it with its five year (2015-19) domestic development programme called Nurly Zhol (Bright Path), recorded an external debt of 94% of its GDP in September-end 2018.

Nonetheless, it is early days and therefore almost impossible to assess the full extent of the damage or indeed benefits out of the China-sponsored BRI-related projects. What is certain however is that economically-speaking, China has come to exercise greater leverage vis-à-vis the Central Asian region as compared to Russia.

The Resistance of the Russian Bear: How Russia Responds

Realizing that there is a perceptible shift in the balance of economic power from Russia to China, Vladimir Putin’s leadership has so far chosen to go along with Chinese commercial forays into its backyard, which certainly have attendant security ramifications. Going a step ahead, Russia has sought to work with China in terms of crafting regional institutions of which the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has been a shining example. Although the origin of SCO was tied to the post-Soviet border demarcation and demilitarisation issues, the institution has come to demonstrate the enduring nature of the Sino-Soviet rapprochement in the immediate post-Cold War aftermath as also the rise of a new force for a stable regional order. At the same time, the Russians have not lulled themselves into complete passivity and complacency. Punching equal to its weight, Russia has sought to steer the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in a bid to chart and drive its own economic and commercial agenda in the region. From China’s point of view, both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – especially reading through the lens of Islamic terror threat in Xinjiang – are members of EEU with Tajikistan being counted as a prospective member. Furthermore, although China is Kyrgyzstan’s largest trading partner, Russia is a prominent destination for Kyrgyz people working outside their country and also a source of substantial volume of remittance flows.

Economics aside, Russia is still the predominant security provider to the Central Asian nations, particularly Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. With its largest military base outside the country being in Tajikistan which borders China, security-wise, Russians do not seem to be ceding any space to any outside power, including China. Then although there have been reports of Chinese military presence in Kyrgyzstan, as mentioned earlier, the presence is rather modest and nowhere comparable to deep Russian-Kyrgyz military and security services linkages. Most of all, Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) remains the preeminent security actor in the region.

The shadow of the others

This ebb and flow of the Sino-Russian interaction in Central Asia has not been concealed from the other players both within and outside the Central Asian region. At a time when globalisation appears to be beating a retreat the unravelling of the EU project being a prime example, and the rise of populist leaders fuelling that phenomenon, Central Asia too will remain subject to the vagaries of regional as well as global politics.

As Trump’s America increasingly looks inward often proposing the removal of troops from Afghanistan while calling upon the regional players to play a more active role, Russia and China will have pivotal roles to play in Central Asia. Both are already actively engaging with Taliban. Then Trump’s trade war with China is likely to bolster the Russia-China relations. At the same time, regardless of Trump, the other players such as Japan and India and many others would desire and hope for a rupture in the Russia-China nexus. India on its part not wanting to be left behind has embarked on the ambitious India-Central Asia Dialogue in January 2019, besides joining the SCO (along with Pakistan) back in 2017.

There have been reports of Europe even putting Crimea behind when it comes to Russia in the hope of thwarting a Russia-China coming together. However, there have been signs of uncertainty from within Central Asia itself. In a post-Karimov Uzbekistan, the country is unlikely to allow China a free run, or even Russia. Then most recently, there has been a discord between Turkmenistan and China over gas pricing issues and the Central Asian country usually known to keep equidistance from all had veered towards Russia and away from China.

Nonetheless, until the time Russia and Central Asia remain tethered to the Chinese economy for their own development and investment reasons, China will play the principal and the dominant role in the region economically. The status quo will last until China decides to take up the mantle of a more prominent military/security provider at the expense of Russia in the region. Until that happens, the Chinese dragon and Russian bear will continue to dance together. The apparent Russia-China bonhomie will endure.

[1] Figures arrived at based on data from UN Comtrade website