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Beijing's Central Asia strategy
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| 02 October 2003 |
Central Asia is assuming greater strategic and economic prominence and competition has intensified among powerful regional powers keen to enhance their influence. JID's regional correspondent assesses Beijing's strategy.
The Chinese leadership has adopted a comprehensive policy to strengthen its presence in what it regards as its strategic backyard - Central Asia. The latest prime ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) focused on the goals of stepping-up security co-operation, as well as forging closer economic ties.
Beijing's Central Asian strategy has the following objectives:
· China plans to establish a firm grip on the growing Central Asian economies by cultivating institutional and structural ties. It stands to benefit both as a supplier and as an investor once the Central Asian economies - with their huge energy reserves - eventually take off.
·China is also planning for the eventual establishment of a regional free-trade zone - a step towards making the traditional 'Silk Road' a more functional route for regional trade.
·The leadership in Beijing also wants to promote co-ordinated measures with the countries of Central Asia, designed to combat Muslim Uighur separatists in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which borders Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
By developing close ties with the Central Asian countries, China also aims at counterbalancing the growing US military presence in the region.
Amid continuing instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Chinese leadership is becoming increasingly nervous over the possibility of a US troop presence in Central Asia on a long-term basis. However, given the present military co-operation of all four Central Asian countries with the Bush administration in its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Beijing is tactfully avoiding any open indication of its concerns over the US presence in the region, concentrating instead on the further institutionalisation of the SCO, which is designed to reinforce its own dominance of the group.
Strategists in Beijing are expressing the view that sooner or later issues such as concerns over human rights and a lack of democracy will create a rift between the Central Asian regimes and the USA - thus enhancing China's profile in the region at the expense of US influence. Washington's military presence in the region is also providing a significant motive for China and Russia to develop a joint strategy in Central Asia. The Chinese leadership is calculating that its co-operation with Russia will not only counterbalance US influence in the region but will also encourage Central Asian nations to resist the inevitable Western pressures for political and economic reform.
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