China Turns West: Beijing's Contemporary Strategy towards Central Asia

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed a fundamental shift in Chinese foreign policy. Its involvement in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea, ASEAN, the ASEAN Regional Forum, as well as warming relations with the US and Russia, indicate a more assertive and responsible international diplomacy. One of the rapidly emerging arenas of China’s new posture is Central Asia, where, with Russia, it codominates the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a nascent multilateral venture. It has also greatly increased its energy imports from the region and has sought cooperation on a number of political issues. Throughout its history, the PRC has done little to influence Central Asia, partly due to its own instability along its periphery, and internal problems in the Chinese heartland. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has instituted warm relations with each of these four newly independent Central Asian states.1 Few scholars have thoroughly examined this emerging phenomenon, particularly since 2001, even though it remains crucial for understanding China’s regional strategy. Of note, two works are both comprehensive in scope and take into account the significant changes since 2001 in Sino-Central Asian relations, such as the SCO founding in 2001, 9/11 and improved USChina relations. In the first of the most recent works, Bates Gill and Matthew Oresman analyze the breadth of issues in Sino-Central Asian relations, inspired by the proceedings of a conference on the topic.2 Their book, while the first to incorporate changes stemming from 2001 and the most exhaustive work on the subject, fails to place Chinese interests in Central Asia into either a theoretical or clear policy framework and calculus. This omission is certainly not a reflection of the authors’ analysis or knowledge of the subject, but of their desire to reflect the scope of ideas and policy implications stemming from the conference. A second work, by Niklas Swanstrom, ______________________