PRAGUE - Since China's annexation
of the Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region in 1950,
Beijing has pursued policies that have put considerable
pressure on the local environment. This western region,
which borders Central Asia, is home to China's main
nuclear testing site. Pollution does not respect
political boundaries, which is why the impact of the 42
reported tests at Lop Nor worries Central Asians, as
does the planned construction of oil and gas pipelines
linking Xinjiang to Central Asia. But the most immediate
concern is water. China's "go west" policy aimed at
further developing its northwestern province requires
ever-growing amounts of water.
Xinjiang's
growing thirst for water is raising fears of a major
catastrophe in Kazakhstan.
Mels Eleusizov heads
the Kazakh non-governmental organization Tabigat
(Nature). He said the Irtysh and Ili rivers, which both
originate in mountainous areas of Xinjiang before
crossing into Kazakhstan, are being increasingly drained
to serve China's needs.
"For Kazakhstan, the
most alarm concerns two rivers - the Ili and Irtysh,"
Eleusizov said. "The new infrastructure and factories in
Xinjiang consume a lot of water. The drinking water
needs are increasing, too. If China continues to
increase water consumption in the area, it will
certainly affect the water resources on our side."
The Ili flows through Xinjiang into southeastern
Kazakhstan and terminates in Lake Balkhash. The Irtysh
rises in China's Altai Mountains and also crosses into
northeastern Kazakhstan, before flowing through Lake
Zaysan to the Russian city of Omsk and then into the Ob
River. The increasing usage of river water in Xinjiang,
which has relatively few water resources of its own, is
inherent in Beijing's aim of attracting ethnic Han
Chinese to the region and developing the local economy.
Ann McMillan, a scholar at Griffith University
in Queensland, Australia, has been researching the
interdependency between Xinjiang and Central Asia.
"There's actually a lot of concern coming out in China
in the government [media]," McMillan says. "There have
been reports about the water table dropping, especially
around Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. So they are
aware that they've got major problems. And they've even
started charging for water in some places. But for their
development to go ahead, they need water. So you've got
a 'Catch 22' situation."
The Irtysh and Ili are
crucial sources of fresh water for the Kazakh
population. Both also play a vital role in the economy,
providing water for the industrial, agricultural. and
fishing sectors.
Myrzageldy Kemel is a member of
the Kazakh parliament's committee on the protection of
the environment and ecology. He talked about the
environmental consequences of the increasing usage of
the Ili's water.
"If the level of the [Ili]
River decreases, the environment along the banks will be
affected drastically," Kemel said. "Local citizens will
suffer a lot. Now, nobody is paying attention to this,
although in about 50 years [the situation] might be even
worse than in the Aral Sea."
The Aral Sea has
lost three-quarters of its volume since 1960, when
Soviet-era planners began diverting its feeder rivers to
irrigate cotton fields. The Aral Sea is widely
acknowledged to be one of the world's worst man-made
environmental disasters.
The United Nations
Development Program has warned that Kazakhstan's largest
lake, Lake Balkhash, is in danger of drying out if
Astana does not adopt better water management practices
or else gain Chinese cooperation over the usage of the
Ili, the lake's main contributor. The current
construction by China of a canal - 300 kilometers long
and 22 meters wide - to reroute water from the Irtysh is
also of great concern.
Abai Tursunov is a
professor at the Kazakh Institute of Geology and
Geography in Almaty. He said he is worried about the
environmental impact when the canal becomes fully
operational, which is estimated to be in 2020. "The
completion of the canal will affect us drastically,"
Tursunov said. "Power stations will be very much
affected. Nobody is raising the issue, but gradually all
of this can lead to major environmental problems."
Hydropower stations and factories are located
along the Irtysh, while the Irtysh-Karaganda canal makes
agriculture possible in central Kazakhstan. The river
also provides drinking water to the capital, Astana, as
well as to three other major cities - Karaganda,
Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar.
Chinese authorities
have provided little information on the canal project.
But speaking to RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, China's
ambassador to Kazakhstan, Zhou Xiao Pei, tried to be
reassuring: "We currently use 10% to 20% of the
[Irtysh's] waters. We are building a new infrastructure.
[But] we are going to use no more than 40% [of the
water]."
In 2001, Kazakhstan and China signed an
agreement aimed at facilitating cooperation on
trans-boundary water management. Through consultations,
the two states agreed to share information concerning
the Irtysh.
Zhakybay Dostay, also of the Kazakh
Institute of Geology and Geography in Almaty, said the
talks have led nowhere so far. "The [joint
Kazakh-Chinese intergovernmental] commission meets every
year without results," Dostay said. "They just give
figures, make statements and sign documents. The
problems remain."
Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbaev visited Xinjiang in September. But there is no
indication that he raised the issue of trans-boundary
rivers with Chinese officials.
Facing
militant threats China and Central Asia face
similar threats from militant Islamic groups, but are
they working together to fight them? China and four
Central Asia states are members of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has focused on
cooperation in the name of security. Such cooperation
has involved information-sharing, some joint military
exercises and, as of this year, an antiterrorism center
in Tashkent. But experts also say cooperation appears to
be a way for China to restrict activity by Uighur
nationalists in the region.
"There was an
explosion. Are you a journalist?" "Yes," he said. "One
man blew himself up over there." "Did you see it?" asked
the journalist. "When I came he had already blown
himself up. I came five or 10 minutes after the
explosion," said the man. "Did people die?" "One person
died," he answered.
That was the scene outside
the US Embassy in Tashkent in July, on the day suicide
bombers attacked it, the Israeli Embassy and the state
prosecutor's office.
Uzbek authorities blamed
radical Islamist groups for the blasts, which killed
seven people, as well as for an earlier wave of violence
in March that left nearly 50 people dead. They presented
the violence as part of global terrorism, saying the
attackers may have had links with al-Qaeda.
Other Central Asian countries say they are also
worried about the rising influence of radical Islamist
groups. China, too, has seen violence in its region that
borders several Central Asian countries, and blamed a
series of bombings and assassinations in the late 1990s
on separatist Muslim Uighurs.
But the radical
groups appear to have different agendas. Those believed
to be behind the Uzbek violence - or at least the main
suspects, as it's still unclear who's responsible - seek
social as well as political change with the creation of
an Islamic state in the region.
In the case of
China, it's separatism - Muslim Uighur groups seeking an
independent state in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
So how are the countries working together to solve the
problem? Uzbek President Islam Karimov said: "We are in
full solidarity with China in the fight against the
three evils - international terrorism, extremism and
separatism."
Karimov was speaking in June, on
the eve of a summit of the SCO. The grouping is the main
regional forum for cooperation in security, as well as
other spheres. Its members - Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, along with Russia and China -
pledged to unite and step up regional efforts against
terrorism and extremism.
So far, experts say
that has meant some intelligence sharing, treaties
allowing joint criminal investigations, and military
exercises. In 2002, Kyrgyzstan became the first foreign
nation to hold military maneuvers with China. The
following year, there were exercises involving SCO
members in Kazakhstan and China. But experts say the
cooperation is mainly a way for China to restrict
activity by Uighur nationalists in the region. China has
asked for help in capturing Uighur exiles it calls
terrorists. In recent years, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan
have both deported Uighurs at China's request.
Li Hua, first secretary at the Chinese Embassy
in Bishkek, says it is normal to deport what he called
"criminals". "There are laws in the world according to
which criminals must be held responsible," he said. The
trouble is, says regional expert Niklas Swanstrom, that
some of those who are being deported may be innocent.
Swanstrom is executive director of the program for
contemporary Silk Road studies at Sweden's Uppsala
University: "When a country comes and says, 'Hand over
the terrorists', it's really hard to say, 'No, we're not
going to do that'. But in many of those cases, they are
not necessarily terrorists."
Sadyk, a Uighur
living in Bishkek, told RFE/RL earlier this year that
Uighurs who are deported are in grave danger: "Last
year, Kyrgyzstan deported two young [ethnic Uighurs] to
China. The Chinese authorities tortured and killed them.
Then they gave their bodies to their parents in [the
Chinese city of] Kashgar [in Xinjiang] last September,
saying disease had killed them."
Kamron Aliyev,
an independent Uzbek analyst, believes Central Asian
authorities will seek to clamp down further on Uighur
groups in order to foster good relations with China: "In
Uzbekistan and in other Central Asian countries, there
are a number of independent Uighur organizations that
deal with their cultural, language, human rights and
national dignity issues. Local governments that are
getting assistance from China now will be trying to
close them down. Governments will try to restrict
freedom of their activities. We can expect that
Uzbekistan's security service will be conducting talks
with China on these issues."
To be sure, experts
say there are limits to cooperation in the name of
security. Alex Vatanka says that, on paper at least,
there is a strong incentive for China and Central Asia
to cooperate. Vatanka is a regional security expert with
the Jane's military publishing group in London: "One of
the main characteristics of these states is that they
are suspicious of one another, which is obviously a
major, major obstacle to any deep-seated and fundamental
shifts in attitude in regards to transnational threats
such as terrorism and drug trafficking. [Central Asian
countries are] suspicious of the Chinese, and I think
they're trying to balance the Russians, the Chinese, the
Americans against one another and - given the relative
poverty of the region - maximize benefits to themselves.
So far they seem to have done an okay job, but nothing
is standing out as a prime example of how regional
cooperation has achieved specific objectives. As far as
the pan-Islamism goes in the region, the threat is
exactly today what it was two, three years ago."
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave
NW, Washington DC 20036
