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China and the Western
Regions
By Zhang Xiaodong
A
couple of years ago Charles Freeman, former US
ambassador to Saudi Arabia and now president of the
Middle East Policy Council, asked me to write a paper
for his journal Middle East Policy to discuss China's
policy and interests in the Middle East. While writing
that paper I found it very difficult to ignore Central
Asia, the Caucasus and even the Indian subcontinent when
talking about the relationship between China and the
Middle East.
In fact the links among these areas
have become so strong in recent years that we may want
to find new terms to describe them. Moreover, these
areas have a growing influence on China, ranging from
economy to security. China needs to formulate a
long-term strategy for dealing with them. A term
forgotten for more than a hundred years can be of use:
Xiyu, the Western Regions. This Chinese term can be used
to cover all the regions from the Middle East to South
Asia. The term reflects a Chinese geographical concept
and world outlook. If we consider the traditional
relations between China and Xiyu, the term now would
renew the Chinese sense of history and even sense of
crisis.
Geopolitical changes in the Western
Regions
Because of the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, Russian influence in Central and West Asia
has shrunk on all fronts. From the expansion under Peter
the Great to the domination of most of the Crimea,
Caucasus and Central Asia, the Russians took almost 200
years to establish their rule in this area. After the
October Revolution, the Soviet Union not only inherited
the territories of czarist Russia but also gradually
picked up its foreign policy in Asia. In its heyday, the
Soviet Union set up military bases in the Horn of Africa
and South Yemen, maintained close ties with some radical
Arab countries, and, in 1979, occupied Afghanistan. The
disintegration of the Soviet Union, even if it did not
mean the complete disappearance of the Russian threat,
decreased the pressure upon those countries in the
northern part of the Middle East, and also provided them
with more space and opportunity to play a role in the
regional or international politics.
An immense
political vacuum appeared after the Soviet collapse and
a new geopolitical competition started in the hinterland
of Asia. No matter how the Russian dominance in Central
Asia and Caucasus is evaluated, there is a process of
renunciation of Russian politics, economics, social
system, culture and ideology that created a new
political atmosphere. The former Soviet republics and
territories rejected their recent past, but had great
difficulties in finding their new identity and roots of
nationality in their more distant past, which had been
sealed in history for a long time. As to the future,
nobody knows what it will be. The Turks say these new
territories should learn from the Turkish model. Some
countries in the Middle East conversely argue that the
Turks are too secular, that their system is not good for
a Muslim society. The Iranians advocate that these
countries should learn from Iran. And the Americans
maintain that only the American dream will take them
into the future. This new ideological competition became
fiercer when the Caspian Basin came to be regarded as
another Persian Gulf for its oil.
Once again the
Western Regions have become the crossroads of the
Eurasian continent. During the 2,000 years preceding
Russian dominance, these areas had two functions. They
linked China with the Mediterranean and Europe, and were
the passage and bridgehead for the nomadic peoples going
down to Mesopotamia, Iran, India and China. Today the
Western Regions have begun to play their ancient roles
once more. However, there is one big difference: during
the current period of globalization the Western Regions
will be even more important for the whole world than in
the past. They could be a central link in the richest
and most populous land mass on Earth, Eurasia.
The Western Regions and China's national
security
From ancient times China's dynasties
were threatened by invasion by nomadic peoples in the
north and northwest. There were the Huns in the Qin and
Han dynasties, the Turks in Sui and Tang times. There
was long-term chaos in northern China during the Five
Dynasties, and then began the confrontation between the
Song Dynasty and the invading Liao and Jin. Finally the
Mongols and Manchurians successively established their
rule all over China. The Great Wall, which has been
standing for thousands of years, witnessed China's focus
and orientation on defense against the north.
With the Industrial Revolution in the West and
control of the seas by Western nations, the main threat
to China's security shifted to the south and southeast.
During the 110 years from the Opium War in 1840 to the
founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949,
numerous invasions of China were launched from the sea
and three times occupations of China's capital city were
conducted via the sea. But even in this period, the
threat from the north and northwest by no means
decreased. Quite to the contrary, China lost a lot of
territory, and the borders were tremendously changed.
Basically, during the 2,000 years before the
Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the threat that China
had faced in the north and northwest could be divided
into two stages. During the first stage, from 221 BC
until the middle of the 19th century, the biggest
headache for China's rulers was the regular invasions by
the northern nomadic peoples, ranging from border
skirmishes to civil wars and occupation. From the middle
of the 19th century the Russians became the biggest
threat to China's security in the north and northwest.
After 1991, a new security situation came in
being. There was no likelihood of a large-scale military
invasion, or even border conflicts, because territorial
disputes with most of China's neighbors were being
solved. Furthermore, China established a security
framework through the Shanghai Five. But some security
challenges remain.
The first is related to the
Islamic extremism and separatism. In the past 10 years,
these have become a major factor both regionally and
internationally. From the Balkans to the Caucasus, and
from Central Asia to Afghanistan and Kashmir, there are
many types of radicalism or separatism; most of them
have their own international backgrounds, and most of
them are related to Islam. During the Kosovo War, the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United
States developed a new concept and model of
intervention, from which some separatists gained
encouragement and confidence. China experienced some
terrorist activities in Xinjiang, and connections were
found between those activities and Islamic extremists
elsewhere. A couple of years ago there were reports of a
Chinese Muslim brigade that received training in Afghan
camps. According to Russian diplomatic sources two
Islamic fighters captured in Chechnya were extradited to
China because they were citizens of that country, and US
troops in Afghanistan have captured some al-Qaeda
militants who are Chinese citizens.
The second
security challenge is related to the dispute between
India and Pakistan. In the past months, relations
between the two countries became strained because of a
terrorist attack on the Indian parliament. That attack
reflected the long-term dispute on Kashmir between India
and Pakistan. Since the end of the Cold War, the
strategic balance in the subcontinent has been shifting
to India's advantage. For instance, Russia continues to
be India's ally but the United States is gradually
giving up its policy of support to Pakistan. Actually
the US is taking more of a neutral position between
Pakistan and India, although leaning toward India. In
its new global strategy, the US obviously regards India
as an important factor in the possible containment of
China. As a result of this new situation, India is
becoming more confident than ever in its dealings with
China and with other issues in the subcontinent. But
this could lead to an excessive Indian assertiveness in
the subcontinent that could ruffle a few feathers in the
region and beyond. Furthermore, certainly India has the
right to fight terrorism, but Kashmir is not a simple
terrorist issue.
The Western Regions and
security of China's energy supply
If there is no
new discovery of oil reserves, China's oil production
will not reach 200 million tons a year. Statistics
indicate that the annual production of crude oil in the
1990s never exceeded 170 million tons a year, although
the national petroleum industry did its best to search
and develop new oilfields.
According to research
published by the Center for Economic Studies of China's
State Commission of Economy and Trade, by 2005 China's
annual consumption of crude oil will be 243 million
tons, by 2010 it will grow to 296 million tons and by
2015 it could reach 360 million tons. If no large
oilfield is found, China will have a shortfall of 200
million tons of oil per year. Foreign estimates are more
astonishing: by 2020, China will import as much as 8
million barrels of oil a day, or 400 million tons in a
whole year.
Since 1996, China has become a net
importer of crude oil. Since then, half of its imported
crude oil has come from the Middle East. In 1996 it was
52.89 percent; in 1997, 47.31 percent; in 1998, 61
percent; in 1999, 46.16 percent. If the percentage rises
to 70 percent, oil from the Middle East will have a
tremendous impact on the Chinese economy. One of the
effective strategies to decrease dependency on Middle
East oil is to diversify suppliers of crude. But the
question is, who has the potential to be a supplier who
can steadily export oil to China at an acceptable price?
It is very likely to be the Caspian Basin.
US
military action and consequences
For the security
of China, the US military action in Afghanistan added
some new uncertainties.
The US troops and their
allies will continue to stay in Central Asia after
finishing their military action in Afghanistan. Will the
US interfere in Xinjiang affairs? It is uncertain. To
some extent it depends on America's view of China: as a
partner, an enemy, a rival, or something else. Based on
the experience of the past decades, the US might get
involved in Xinjiang. In 1949, the United States
supported the Kuomintang in its flight to Taiwan. In the
1950 and '60s, the US trained and sponsored exiled
Tibetans for an uprising in Tibet.
Strategically, India is more important than
Pakistan for America's global interests. But India might
be willing to seize this moment as an opportunity to
solve the Kashmir issue. There is the real possibility
that a new Indian-Pakistani war will take place in the
future. This war would be disastrous, as it would change
the whole political balance in Central and South Asia.
Then there is the cooperation among the US,
Russia and the Central Asian states against terrorism
and radical Islam. Furthermore there is the NATO
involvement in Central Asia.
Basically, the US
military presence in Central Asia will be a
psychological pressure point more than a real military
threat. It is not credible that the US will launch a
military attack from its bases in Central Asia. However,
this presence will profoundly influence the strategic
options when China deals with sensitive domestic or
international crises.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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