As the U.S. and NATO prepare to leave Afghanistan Washington, Brussels, Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, Iran, Ankara, Tehran, and Islamabad are all competing to enhance their influence in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan, a weak state whose government just collapsed, exemplifies the process by which the struggle for influence occurs. While Washington is currently negotiating the status of its base at Manas after 2014 and Turkey is the second largest investor in Kyrgyzstan, it is very clear that the real rivalry in Kyrgyzstan is occurring between Russia and China.
BACKGROUND: Kyrgyzstan remains a weak state as the recent fall of its government indicates. This makes it more dependent upon outside support, a fact that both Russia and china have been quick to exploit. Moscow has again offered to fund Kyrgyzstan’s Kambarata-1 hydroelectric project and forgive about 40 percent of the country’s roughly US$ 500 million debt. The Dastan torpedo factory will reportedly be opened up to private auction, i.e. Russian investment. Moscow is pushing for two of its state firms, the state electric firm Inter RAO and Rushydro, to own a 75 percent stake in the Kambarata hydroelectric project. Uzbekistan strongly opposes Kambarata lest it give those two states control over the Syr Daria watershed that is crucial for its agriculture sector.
Moscow has reportedly sought a 49-year lease for its four military facilities in Kyrgyzstan but both parties have so far agreed to a fifteen year lease beginning in 2017. Nonetheless a governmental representative told local media that the agreement may not actually be signed until 2017 –an eternity in Kyrgyz politics – and a statement reflecting its wariness about Russia. Indeed, even as Kyrgyzstan was negotiating its agreements with Moscow, President Almazbek Atambayev made all kinds of derogatory remarks about Russia, despite his pledge that Kyrgyzstan would join the Eurasian Economic Union (EURASEC). EURASEC is the centerpiece of Putin’s plans for Central Asia and a clear effort to curtail the expansion of China’s commercial and overall economic presence in Central Asia.
Membership in EURASEC essentially means sacrificing Kyrgyzstan’s economy to Moscow in an equally desperate effort to keep the state together. Even though Kyrgyzstan has been a member of the World Trade Organization for years and has much lower import and export tariff rates than does the new Customs Union, it decided to assume the burden of heavier import tariffs. Consequently it will pay higher prices for goods imported from Russia, Kazakhstan, and the Middle East. It is thus forced to subsidize noncompetitive Russian goods to stay alive. Yet, there is little doubt that both Kyrgyz leaders like Atambayev and the Chinese government have understood the Russian policy and its thrust to deprive Kyrgyzstan of its real sovereignty.
IMPLICATIONS: On his recent visit to China, Atambayev typically sought large-scale Chinese support. Kyrgyzstan and China agreed to enhance security cooperation, though it is not clear what they meant by that. The two governments also discussed measures to support and further promote Chinese investments in transportation and infrastructure, e.g. the Osh-Batken-Isfana road, and further moves in energy cooperation. These projects also appear to comprise China’s proposed railway system that would tie together China, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan; the Dalka-Kemin transmission line – a project to construct a transmission line from Kyrgyzstan directly to China; and exploration for oil and natural gas. China wants to build an oil pipeline from Kazakhstan and a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through northern Kyrgyzstan.
Atambayev states that these programs would promote energy security, transport liberalization, and regional economic integration, all of which cut directly against Moscow’s interests as expressed through EURASEC. Thus the rivalry between Beijing and Moscow, along with Bishkek’s desire to exploit that rivalry to maximize its freedom of action, visibly expresses the shape of present foreseeable rivalries in Central Asia through competing economic projects and models. China’s loans contrast with Russia’s demands for subordination and the transfer of real assets as the price of support, yet do not excessively burden Kyrgyz leaders with too many requirements for transparency.
As the NATO and U.S. forces depart from Afghanistan and their primarily militarily-oriented presence throughout Central Asia, an economic-political rivalry among all the foreign actors interested in the region has sprung up. Whereas Washington’s footprint is largely though not exclusively visible in Uzbekistan and in the construction of military installations throughout the region, Russia is attempting to combine both defense presence and economic suzerainty through bilateral deals and EURASEC. China’s presence is more exclusively economic though there are signs that it too may be thinking of enhanced defense cooperation and presence. However, in the meantime, China has become the place where local governments go to raise capital on global markets and is outstripping Russia in regard to trade, investment, and energy assets. Indeed, already this year China may receive more gas from Central Asia than does Russia.
This supplanting of Russia by China alarms Moscow as seen in the vigorous push behind the EURASEC idea. Yet, Russia cannot come out and openly address China as a rival here because it needs China for its global “Weltpolitik” against the United States. Nevertheless, it is gradually losing the regional domination it had because economic competition is China’s strength, not Russia’s. Indeed, the rivalry fully validates Andrei Tsygankov’s observation that Russia is really a regional power in Eurasia but masquerades as a global power. Yet because it does so, it is losing ground to China, which is steadily becoming ever more competitive in all the major dimensions of state power. As Tsygankov notes, China is a global power with global impact but prefers to pose as a regional power in East, South and Central Asia.
Naturally other states are also trying to enter into this rivalry; India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and of course, the United States. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that real competitiveness in this latest manifestation of what might be called the new great game lies in the power to trade and invest on attractive terms with Central Asian governments, not to project military power alone. Indeed, the latter looks like a losing proposition until and unless a crisis occurs, which of course cannot be ruled out. Yet, until then any power seeking to invest in Central Asia must be ready, willing, and able to commit quite large investments. All the major projects involved, though they may turn out to be profitable, require big expenditures up front to make an impact, whether such impact is economic or political.
CONCLUSIONS: If that assessment is correct, then most of the other actors seeking to play a major role in Central Asia are likely to falter unless they are prepared to use the power at their disposal to commit substantial resources, either individually or collectively to the region. China is already outpacing Russia, which is encountering ever more difficulties in trying to arrange a continental bloc of satellite states. While it may not be possible for China to organize its own version of such a bloc given the deep-rooted regional fears and apprehensions about Chinese objectives, in the coming years it will probably be the primary foreign economic presence in Central Asia, able to cash in on the political advantages that accrue to any such power.
That Chinese effort, buttressed by economic power, if not the capability to project military power as well, is likely to assume a clear shape in the future. Moreover, there is every reason to imagine that one or more Central Asian states will undergo a major crisis that could trigger demands from the region or on the part of a great power which claims its interests are affected thereby for a foreign intervention. We will then see the real test of whether Moscow can live up to the commitments it seeks to make and obtain from Central Asia or whether China will supplant Russia in the defense and security sphere too. Until then, it is also clear that if anyone wants to join the next phase of great power competition in Central Asia, that government better come with a large and open checkbook.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Stephen Blank is Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Army, Defense Department or the Government.