China and Russia embrace the
Shanghai spirit By M K
Bhadrakumar
Foreign Affairs magazine last
autumn featured an essay titled "China's search
for stability with America", in which it addressed
the "cauldron of anxiety about China".
Naturally, it evoked much discussion in
intellectual and diplomatic circles, and raised
the question of whether the "Chinese dragon will
prove to be a fire-breather", to use the words of
Robert Zoellick, US deputy secretary of state.
Its author was Wang Jisi, dean of the
School of International Studies at Peking
University and director of the Institute of
International Strategic Studies at the Central
Party School of the Communist Party of China.
In any contemplation over China and the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is
meeting in Beijing this week, what
invariably comes to mind is a
passage in Wang's essay about the equilibrium of
China-US-Russia equations in the international
system. Wang wrote:
It helps to understand US power and
Washington's current global strategy. Here is a
Chinese view: in the long term, the decline of
US primacy and the subsequent transition to a
multipolar world are inevitable; but in the
short term, Washington's power is unlikely to
decline, and its position in world affairs is
unlikely to change ... For a long time to come,
the United States is likely to remain dominant,
with sufficient hard power to back up aggressive
diplomatic and military policies.
A
pattern of cooperation and coordination among
the world's major powers, institutionalized
through the G8 [Group of Eight] , has taken
shape, and no great change in this pattern is
likely in the next five to 10 years. To be sure,
some of the differences between the United
States and the EU, Japan, Russia and others will
deepen, and Washington will at times face
coordinated opposition ... But no lasting united
front aimed at confronting Washington is likely
to emerge. It would be foolhardy, however, for
Beijing to challenge directly the international
order and the institutions favored by the
Western world - and, indeed, such a challenge is
unlikely.
Wang introduced yet another
fascinating thought in his essay regarding the
"paradox" of Sino-American relations. He argued
that only a decline of economic strength would
erode US military muscle, which in turn could ease
the strategic pressure on China. But any such
slide would also hurt China's economy. Again, any
decline in US influence could trigger regional
instability - but any increased religious
fundamentalism and terrorism in a region such as
Central Asia could threaten China's own security,
especially along its western borders, "where
ethnic relations have become tense and separatist
tendencies remain a danger".
Similarly, in
the field of energy, while Washington could be
"eyeing Central Asian oilfields near China's
border", Wang recommended that Beijing and
Washington "should try to make sure that the other
side understands its intentions and should explore
ways to cooperate on energy issues through joint
projects such as building nuclear power plants in
China".
The point Wang was making in all
these shrewd observations was that "history has
already proved that the United States is not
China's permanent enemy".
The complexities
of China's equations with regard to Russia are no
less relevant to an understanding of the SCO. As
China would see it, already in the latter part of
the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russia began
rediscovering where its national interests lay and
Russian diplomacy began moving away from an
exclusive Euro-Atlanticist outlook.
(Interestingly, this coincided with the first
appearance of the "Shanghai spirit".)
In
the Chinese estimation, President Vladimir Putin
after his election in 2000 gave a sense of
direction to these nascent tendencies - "putting
the national interests at the core, making
economic revival the top priority, installing
national spirit as the driving power, instituting
powerful political mechanisms as the nation's
political basis ... using historical lessons as a
mirror, taking fully into account Russia's
specific situations in charting the development
road, creating a favorable international climate
for the country and trying to reinstate Russia as
a first-class world power", to quote Yu Sui, a
Chinese scholar at the Research Center of the
Contemporary World in Beijing.
China
estimated the main impulse of Putin's foreign
policy to be one of implementing all-around
diplomacy geared to maintain global and regional
balance. Clearly, Beijing realized that Russia's
diplomacy of independence was driven by the
principle that national interests overrode
everything else.
As Yu puts it, "In the
face of accelerating globalization and bearing the
brunt of the US's unilateralism, Russia is in a
disadvantaged position." Within this paradigm, Yu
identifies Russian diplomacy's principal
characteristics as pragmatism laced with an
occasional "toughness"; balancing or maneuvering
between the East and West; a shying away from
"confrontations and making enemies"; and
maintaining a low profile without making a "loud
noise" about its goal of reaching world-class
power status.
What emerges is that China
is not laboring under any illusions that either by
itself or in cooperation with Russia, the SCO can
be turned into an alliance for confronting
Washington.
Most Western observers ignore
this aspect - unwittingly or otherwise. From
China's point of view, the SCO embodies a close
but unaligned partnership (also described in
Chinese commentaries as "partnership and
non-alliance") with Russia. (The SCO also includes
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan.)
Chinese President Hu Jintao
told journalists in Beijing recently that the SCO
followed the "principle of non-alignment".
An intriguing thought, indeed. But, shorn
of verbosity, the so-called "Shanghai spirit"
actually embodies a new security concept, which
calls for "mutual trust and common security,
partnership and non-alliance, openness and
transparency, equality and consensus, mutual
benefit, and not being against any third country
or regional groups".
No wonder, as Putin
wrote this week, it needed "persistence,
commitment and endurance" to make the SCO work so
far. What it adds up to is that the SCO is the sum
total of the very minimum that at any given point
its member countries can come to agree on.
On the positive side, such a protean form
gives enormous maneuverability to the SCO.
Consider for a moment that in the formalization of
the two momentous decisions impacting on the
Central Asian region's security and stability in
the past 15 years of the post-Soviet period - the
establishment of US military bases in the region
after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US
and the overthrow of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan - the SCO did not even figure as a
protagonist.
Again, the SCO could do
nothing to prevent the "Tulip Revolution" in
Kyrgyzstan or the uprising in Andizhan in
Uzbekistan, though they were unfolding
incrementally.
Yet it was the SCO that
finally drove home the point that the United
States cannot take for granted that its military
presence in Central Asia will continue for ever.
Here too the SCO did not have any enforcement
mechanism when it sought a timeline for the
withdrawal of US troops from Central Asia.
Surprisingly, it wielded a moral authority
that took most observers by surprise - including
Washington. Similarly, it is debatable whether
Uzbekistan could have withstood US attempts for
regime change without the shade offered by the SCO
umbrella.
Even more fascinating is the
ease with which the SCO exposed the hollowness of
"color revolutions", thus reassuring the besieged
leaderships in the region consumed by the fear of
revolutionary change - and of its aftermath.
The SCO simply, adamantly, insisted that
the packaging, exporting and spreading of
democratic revolutions like a module across a
broad array of settings full of local
circumstances was not acceptable. Color revolution
as a constructive strategy of regime change had to
withdraw quietly from the Central Asian political
landscape.
Thus, despite its visible lack
of tooth and claw, the SCO indeed is, as Putin
described, "a reality both in regional and global
politics", and it plays "a significant role in
ensuring stability in the vast Eurasian
territory".
Born into crisis The
SCO was born in a situation of near-crisis
proportions when it became obvious to both Russia
and China by the late 1990s that urgent
coordinated efforts were needed in tackling the
new centers of international terrorism,
separatism, as well as national and religious
extremism in the region - what China calls the
"three evils". (It is important to bear in mind
that the creation of the SCO preceded September 11
and the establishment of a US military presence in
Central Asia.)
In the late 1990s, Russia,
China and the Central Asian states faced multiple
threats. Taliban-ruled Afghanistan had become a
revolving door for militants from Chechnya,
Xinjiang, the Ferghana Valley, Kashmir, etc. As
Putin said, "We [SCO member countries] recognized
that it is only through multilateral partnership
that we can ensure peace and economic development
in our vast region."
Hu Jintao also said
recently, "It is the original intention as well as
the key mission of the SCO to jointly maintain
peace, security and stability in the region ...
The SCO is one of the earliest international
organizations to hold up the banner of fighting
against terrorism, and has played an important
role in coordinating anti-terrorism cooperation
among member states".
But at this point,
the Russian and Chinese approaches to the SCO
begin to display some subtle distinctions. Having
in effect come on top of the fight against the
"three evils", the SCO must certainly move
forward.
Putin has suggested the SCO
should coordinate its efforts and develop "common
approaches toward guaranteeing security in the
Asia-Pacific region". He said this could be
achieved by establishing close relations with the
regional organizations and structures that are
already functioning.
In Russian thinking,
"Such a network of partners will allow us [SCO] to
avoid unnecessary duplication and operating in
parallel, and to act in the common interest
without creating exclusive clubs or divisiveness."
China, in comparison, puts emphasis on the
strengthening of cooperation and coordination
within the SCO on major international and "hot
spot" issues and on concerted joint efforts in
pushing for the establishment of a new political
and economic world order.
The Chinese
approach is far more sweeping than what Russia has
in mind. China emphasizes that the SCO adopted a
common position on the Afghan situation and
expressed common views on multipolarity in the
international system, democratization of
international relations, economic globalization,
multilateralism, etc. Surprisingly, Putin in an
article on the SCO summit, "SCO - a new model of
successful international cooperation", does not
even touch on these aspects.
Russia
originally visualized the SCO against the backdrop
of the security threats to the region. But China
had a conceptualization of the SCO against the
vast backdrop of economic globalization and
political multipolarity in the world order. China
probably didn't want to clutter the minds of the
other member countries with its grand vision. The
fight against the "three evils" was indeed the
pressing issue. The current controversy over
Iran's possible membership has parted the veil
over these nuances.
These nuances also
appear in the SCO's economic agenda. It was at the
prime-ministerial-level meeting of the SCO member
countries in Beijing that China got the guidelines
on multilateral trade and economic cooperation
formalized.
Accordingly, it was decided
that through trade and investment, by the year
2020 the SCO member countries would achieve free
flow of goods, services, capital and technology.
As a follow-up, 127 projects have been identified
for cooperation in various fields, such as trade,
transportation, energy, telecommunications,
technology, etc.
Going by the patchy
record of the Commonwealth of Independent States,
Russia would have doubted whether these proposals
would ever be realized.
But the actual
record speaks otherwise. Xinhua news agency
reported that US$2 billion worth of business
contracts and loan agreements would be signed
during the current SCO summit.
These
include a highway project connecting Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan, two transmission lines in
Tajikistan, a cement plant in Kyrgyzstan with a
daily production of 2,500 tons, and a hydropower
station in Kazakhstan.
In a gesture that
makes Western (and Russian) economic diplomacy
look pathetic, China of its own accord offered an
export credit package of $900 million for Central
Asia. (At the SCO heads-of-government meeting in
Moscow last October, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
pledged that China was willing to expand its
program of credit loans to Central Asian
countries.)
In March, a bilateral credit
agreement worth $269 million was signed with
Tajikistan. According to reports, discussions are
under way on Chinese funding for the restoration
of the Dushanbe-Khujand-Buston highway along the
Tajik-Uzbek border. Again, in April, China's CAMC
company and the Chinese Export-Import Bank signed
a contract for building a new cement plant in the
southern Kyrgyz town of Kyzyl-Kiya, costing $80
million.
The project will create about
1,000 jobs and generate much-needed revenue for
the Kyrgyz government - just the sort of economic
activity that Central Asian countries desperately
need at this juncture.
China's agreement
in April with Turkmenistan for the supply of
natural gas from 2009 involves the construction of
a pipeline via Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which
Beijing has undertaken to fulfill. An interesting
salient here is the ease with which China is able
mutually to complement its SCO networking with the
Central Asian countries and its bilateral
cooperation with them.
This came into full
view last Friday. When Russia was getting ready to
host a meeting of the G8 finance ministers in St
Petersburg on that day, Beijing had a meaningful
diplomatic event too. Hardly four days ahead of
the SCO summit that he was scheduled to attend,
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev paid a two-day
state visit to China.
Thirteen agreements
were signed during the visit. The joint statement
on the visit said the two countries would work on
the technical evaluation and financing for the
construction of a railway line that would also
link Uzbekistan.
President Hu accorded a
red-carpet welcome to Bakiev at the Great Hall of
the People in Beijing. Bakiev's visit is a good
case study of why China's diplomacy has met with
such phenomenal success in Central Asia.
Would Moscow schedule a state visit from
Armenia or Mongolia on July 10, just ahead of the
G8 summit in St Petersburg? But for China, there
can be nothing more important in its international
diplomacy than seizing an opportunity to
consolidate friendship with a neighbor with which
it shares a 1,000-kilometer border.
For
those in the West who raise eyebrows about the SCO
or worry about the dramatic expansion of China's
"soft power" in the Central Asian region, Bakiev's
state visit to Beijing should be an eye-opener.
The fact that the SCO is the first-ever
intergovernmental organization to be based in
China shows how seriously China views the
potential of the body.
There are two
reasons that the SCO has gained traction within
its short life span of five years. First, as Hu
said, "Though there are big differences among the
SCO member states in ideology, culture and level
of economic development, the reason why the SCO
has made such rapid progress and outstanding
achievements lies in our insistence on the
'Shanghai spirit'."
Second, to quote Hu
again, China-Russia relations have reached an
"unprecedented" level and are embedded with an
"obvious strategic ingredient". Chinese diplomacy
has been vigilant not to tread on likely Russian
sensitivities. This leaves the SCO's detractors
with hardly any scope to exploit Sino-Russian
contradictions on the Central Asian steppes.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for
more than 29 years, with postings including
ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey
(1998-2001).
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