CENTRAL ASIAN REGIONAL INTEGRATION: BETWEEN REALITY AND MYTH

In the beginning of April 2007, Kazakhstan’s President, Nursultan Nazarbaev, once again proposed the creation of a Central Asian Union. This idea received a further boost during his visit to Bishkek. If and when the integration arrangement proves itself effective in dealing with regional problems, it will send a clear signal to regional states that regionally-based solutions are possible. If it fails to do so, Central Asia risks falling back into the century-old tradition of being manipulated and taken advantage of by external powers.

BACKGROUND: Initially, the idea of creating a community or union of Central Asian states was promoted by applying the simple logic that integration for these regional states, with their weak economies, shared security concerns and common challenges, is economically and politically more beneficial than to deal with these issues individually.

The history of regional integration developed through a series of summits. These included the January 1993 Tashkent Summit, with a “Protocol of Five Central Asian States on a Common Market”; the January 1994 Tashkent Summit, with the creation of the Central Asian Common Economic Space (CES); the April 1994 Cholpon-Ata summit, with agreements on cooperation in various fields; the July 1994 Almaty meeting (building a comprehensive economic and defense union); the creation of a Central Asian Bank for Cooperation and Development (CABCD) in Bishkek in August 1994; and the approval of five-year integration plan during an April 1995 Bishkek summit. These were followed by meetings of Heads of States devoted to the implementation of their agreements and establishing water, food, communication and raw-mineral resource consortiums like the one in December 1997 in Akmola (later re-named Astana).

Although in 1998, Tajikistan’s entry into Central Asian Economic Union was welcomed by all member states, they moved to replace the name of the Union with the Economic Cooperation, as if to reflect the failure of the ambitious plan for a comprehensive Central Asian Union. This name was further replaced in 2002 by the Central Asian Cooperation Organization, further downsizing the ambitions and expectations of member states. In 2004, reflecting on the changing geopolitical environment in the region, Russia joined the CACO. A year later, with Uzbekistan’s entry into Russia-led Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec), CACO was effectively merged into Eurasec, putting the idea of a Central Asian regional community temporarily on hold. The idea forwarded by President Nazarbaev, known for his strong support in broader Eurasia and the Central Asian region, this April attempts to revive the integrationist ambitions of regional states.

IMPLICATIONS: While an understanding of the high potential of integration is emerging in the Central Asian region, several issues need to be addressed in order to conceptually advance this integrationist design. One of the cornerstones of setting up effective cooperation and integration is the issue of the sovereignty of each member state. The collapse of the USSR made it possible for each state to exercise as much sovereignty as they desired, often leading to a situation where over-excessive exercise of sovereignty of one regional state damaged the interests of others. Border delimitation and water issues serve as good examples for this. For integration to succeed in Central Asia, it is important for these states to accept that the individual sovereignty of each state should be voluntarily limited and transmuted into “regional sovereignty”, under which all problematic issues (ex. inter-state water consumption, others) would become a subject for collective regional decision making. While such a decision-making process shows some signs of emerging, collective actions that deliver on promises and implement collective decisions seem to be lacking. In the longer term, regional jurisdiction over such issues would enforce and protect the individual sovereignty of each state from imbalances, one-sided decisions, and the various problems that these states encounter.

In addition to the issue of sovereignty, there is a perceived lack of economic compatibility among the economies of Central Asian states participating in the integration process. Such a view of their economies makes the leadership of these states perceive their regional counterparts as competitors rather than partners in the international market. In many cases, these states prioritize their ties with non-regional countries as more important for developing their economies than the expansion of economic and trade ties within the region. Accordingly, frontiers are being fortified to protect individual markets from neighboring states. The outcome of such policy is a ‘lose-lose’ situation for all.

Many Central Asian states rely heavily on trade in raw materials, such as gas and oil, with non-regional states. While this brings much-needed revenues to their budgets and short-term impetus for their economies, it does not resolve the tasks of developing regionally-based processing industries, promoting trade in processed goods, facilitating the movement of labor and products across borders, or the task of enhancing the competitiveness of these states in the international market.

Last but not least is the fact that the economic models of these states differ significantly one from another. For instance, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are adopting liberal reforms; Uzbekistan, and to a lesser extent Turkmenistan, continue ‘government-led’ economic reforms. Tajikistan is still recovering from the shock of civil war and heavily relies on foreign assistance from Russia and other international donors.

CONCLUSIONS: The hesitation of the Central Asian countries with regard to closer policy coordination and eventual integration is mainly attributable to their perception that integration will limit their sovereignty, resulting in interference in their internal affairs. Therefore, efforts to radicalize and accelerate the level of integration, without first preparing the ground, might result in the failure of the entire process. Defining clear objectives and integration policies is crucial for any regional integration process. It is essential that these objectives are realistic and achievable. Otherwise, as in the case of the CIS or other regional schemes, implementation will lead to inefficiency. One way for the Central Asian countries to proceed is to re-convene around the concept of a Common Economic Space, defining shared economic objectives and economic security concerns and forming strategies that benefit all participating parties.

It is observed that integration among geographically, politically and economically disparate countries is often approached with hesitation and great sensitivity on the part of all participating states, on account of the perceived ambitions and aspirations of the larger states; and the larger states’ fear of offering smaller states a “free ride”. In this respect, confidence-building measures are crucial for successful integration in the CA region.

The timing of the institutionalization process is of great importance as well. While it is recognized that a lack of institutional structures damages the prospects of integration, the creation of new structures, called upon to facilitate this process, should not be the final goal but rather a means of supporting integration. In the opposite case, it lends doubt to their effectiveness. Institutional support must grow with the issues of integration that this support is called upon to resolve. In this respect, constructing institutional schemes similar to the EU or ASEAN at the initial stages of Central Asian regional integration might prove unproductive, or worse, even self-defeating.

In the final analysis, regional integration, wherever it takes place, should first focus on one or two particular areas (for instance borders and water management) as proposed in the new initiative by President Nazarbaev. When success in these areas is achieved, integration can move on to additional areas and potentially to new levels of institutionalization, taking on new tasks and responsibilities. Closer integration in these areas would imply some kind of voluntary deferral of national sovereignty in favor of “regional sovereignty”, through the forming of transnational consortiums and mechanisms.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Timur Dadabaev is Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo. His is the author of Towards Post-Soviet Central Asian Regional Integration: A Scheme for Transitional States, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2004.