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The Great Game on a razor's edge
By M K Bhadrakumar
handicapped in two other respects. First, the United States' complete loss of
influence in Tashkent after the Andizhan mishap in May 2005 is cramping overall
US diplomacy in the region.
There is no denying that Uzbekistan is a key country in Central Asia. In the
Soviet era, everyone from Josef Stalin down knew the axiom that Uzbekistan was
the hub of the geopolitics of the region. True, the US put out several feelers
to Tashkent through intermediaries for reconciliation, and lately even the
European Union lent a hand, but Tashkent wouldn't budge. The laceration of
Uzbek national pride by the US over Andizhan opened such
painful wounds that forgiveness may take much time coming and will extract
sincere repentance on the part of Washington for its role in the Andizhan
uprising. Meanwhile, the US has been left with no option but to watch Russian
and Chinese influence in Tashkent expanding by leaps and bounds.
In a similar fashion, but in an even more fundamental sense, US diplomacy in
Central Asia is seriously hobbled by Washington's alienation from Iran. Ten
years have gone by since the famous article by Zbigniew Brzezinski in Foreign
Affairs magazine calling for unconditional abandonment of the US policy of
containment of Iran. Brzezinski had brilliantly argued the case (which most US
career diplomats assigned to the region then also believed) that for US
regional diplomacy to be anywhere near optimal in the Caucasus, in the Caspian
region and in Central Asia, it must befriend Tehran. But Washington's mental
block over Iran persists.
Meanwhile, the "Greater Central Asia" strategy unveiled by Washington last
April with so much elan has already fizzled out. The strategy was avowedly
intended to roll back Russian and Chinese influence in the region. Testifying
before the US Congress that month, a senior State Department official said, "A
lot of what we do here is to give the countries of the region the opportunities
to make choices ... and keep them from being bottled up between two great
powers, Russia and China."
The US official conjured up visions that could only belong to the world of
fantasies: "Students and professors from Bishkek and Almaty can collaborate
with and learn from their partners in Karachi and Kabul, legitimate trade can
freely flow overland from Astana to Islamabad, facilitated by modern border
controls, and an enhanced regional power grid stretching from Almaty to New
Delhi will be fed by oil and gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and
hydropower from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan."
No wonder there are no takers in Central Asia for Washington's policy
construct. Central Asian states are aware of the Taliban's resurgence in
Afghanistan, and reckon that peace is a distant goal. Even New Delhi seems
embarrassed. Islamabad keeps quiet. The only capital to evince enthusiasm for
Washington's paradigm of steering Central Asian states toward South Asian
allies has been Kabul.
Sino-US convergence?
But failures may often hold the key to success. In a way, the current failures
in regional policy may open a window of opportunity for the US in the period
ahead. The point is: Without the glue of a serious US geopolitical challenge to
bind them together into undertaking collective countermeasures, can the
Sino-Russian condominium hold together in Central Asia for long? It is apparent
that divergences have already appeared in the respective Chinese and Russian
interests in Central Asia.
China has used the SCO forum and the Russian influence in Central Asia to
return to the region, which is indeed its back yard, for the first time in
nearly 1,000 years. It is important to bear in mind that Beijing launched the
idea of the SCO, and Russia accepted it. China views Central Asia as its "near
abroad". As China's economic muscle grows, Beijing can afford to be more
assertive.
China's soft power is already at work in the region. It is increasingly able to
invoke its bilateral-cooperation mechanisms with Central Asian countries. There
is hardly any need for China to ride piggyback on Russian goodwill or Russian
influence in the region. China has used the SCO for acquiring local knowledge,
and in building relations with the region's indigenous political, economic and
military elites.
It is in the area of energy security that Chinese interests and concerns have
already begun diverging significantly from those of Russia. The trend during
2006 has been that Russia's energy interests - in controlling the region's
transportation routes for oil and gas, in sourcing the region's energy for
meeting Russia's domestic needs that would leave an exportable surplus for
meeting its commitments in Europe, in having a say in determining the price of
energy in the region - are increasingly affected by China's robust quest for
oil and gas in the region.
The early signs of this contradiction in Sino-Russian cooperation in Central
Asia began appearing in 2005 when the China National Petroleum Corp acquired
the PetroKazakhstan oil company for $4.18 billion.
China's gas deal with Turkmenistan in April 2006; the commissioning of an oil
pipeline from Kazakhstan; China's proposal for an energy-pipeline grid for
Central Asia and connecting it with Xinjiang; China's cooperation agreement
with Iran in the Caspian region; China's gas deals with Uzbekistan; China's
interest in participating in a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline -
all these are happenings within one calendar year, each imbued with strategic
significance.
This past year, too, China has waded into the controversial waters of the
Caspian Sea in search of oil when last January Iran's North Drilling Co and
China Oilfield Services Ltd signed an oil-exploration agreement relating to the
disputed deep waters of the southern Caspian. In one way or another, all these
developments cut into Russian interests in Central Asia's energy sector.
Having said that, however, the China-Russia strategic partnership has a much
greater regional and global logic than Central Asia, and the attempt in Moscow
and Beijing will presumably be to harmonize their differences in Central Asia
from spinning out of control. Also, both Moscow and Beijing realize that
Central Asian states themselves will seek out Russia to balance their relations
with China.
How these contradictory tendencies will play out within the SCO processes
presents an engrossing topic. Clearly, the opportunity arises for the US to
establish a dialogue with the SCO. A breakthrough may come in 2007. The
prominent Russia hand in the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, Ariel
Cohen, wrote recently, "Given that the SCO primarily serves as a geopolitical
counterweight to the US, Washington stands little chance of ever receiving full
membership in the group ... But US officials do not necessarily need full
membership in the organization in order to work closely with the Central Asian
states. It would serve Washington's best interests to remain in close contact
with the SCO. To do so, it could resubmit an application seeking observer
status.
"To boost the chances of success," Cohen added, "the US should engage Central
Asian states by balancing democracy promotion and democratization with its
other national interests, including security and energy."
Conceivably, we may expect even a NATO overture to the SCO in the coming year.
In an exclusive interview with People's Daily last month, NATO secretary
general Jaap de Hoop Schaffer held out the interesting suggestion to Beijing
that there doesn't have to be a contradiction between China's membership of the
SCO and China's future cooperation with NATO.
Without doubt, a palpable sense of urgency is already apparent in US thinking
to the effect that the Chinese-Russian strategic partnership poses a serious
threat to the United States' geopolitical position in Central Asia, and second,
that China is actively remaking Central Asia's order. Last September, the US
