Asia Times: China, Russia raise Central Asia stakes


	June 20, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

China, Russia raise Central Asia stakes
Analysis by Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - With the recent metamorphosis of a border deal into a new organization covering Central Asia, the volatile region is set to be dominated by Russia and China.

This transformation into a new grouping took place at the June 14-15 fifth annual summit in Shanghai of the "Shanghai Five", which consists of Russia, China and the former Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The new group, called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), also accepted Uzbekistan as a new member. The SCO's roots lie in the 1997 creation of a body to deal with border disputes and cooperate amid common concerns about Islamic extremism.

In that year, the Shanghai Five countries, which share the former Soviet-Chinese border, signed a treaty on the significant reduction of border troop numbers. Thus the "Shanghai Five" was born.

For Russia, its elevation this week to a formal regional structure underscores the fruition of its long-advocated collective security action to deal with perceived terrorist threats in Central Asia. The next SCO summit will held next year in St Petersburg, the native city of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But the creation of the latest regional club also has other implications for the power equation in Central Asia. For instance, because Russia and China have long shared concern over what they view as American dominance in international affairs, Moscow and Beijing are expected to push the SCO as some sort of counterbalance to Washington's perceived unilateralism.

The question who is likely to be calling the shots within the SCO is nobody's secret. Russia and China are set to become "driving forces" of the SCO, the Russian Interfax news agency quoted a Kremlin source as saying. Russia and China prioritize efforts to improve global security to secure democratic world order and a "multi-polar world", Putin was quoted as saying.

In recent years, the concept of a "multi-polar world" has been Moscow's favorite mantra, based on the argument that the United States should not dominate the world as a single superpower. Hence, attempts to transform the Shanghai Five into a sound international organization may be viewed as an effort to embody the multi-polar vision.

"There is nothing more dreadful for US Central Asian policy than a rapprochement between Russia and China," argued State Duma deputy Alexey Arbatov. SCO defense ministers this week voiced support for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty between Russia and the United States, a move that signals opposition to the planned US missile defense system.The Bush administration wants to amend the treaty in order to set up a National Missile Defense system aimed at protecting the United States from "rogue" states. But this has been rejected by countries such as Russia and China, which say it reflects the unilateralism behind US policy and could provoke a new arms race.

These days Russia is an exclusive supplier of advance weapons and military technology to China, said Dmitry Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "It is obviously a matter of concern for the United States," he argues.

Experts add that the joining of Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation, into the SCO is a key development. "Uzbekistan's admission into the new international group comes as a quite significant development," Konstantin Kosachev, deputy head of the international affairs committee of Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of Parliament, says.

Not least, Uzbekistan's joining the SCO comes as a blow to another post-Soviet group, GUUAM, which includes Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova. This was created with Western support in 1997 to challenge Russia's perceived domination. The group expanded to become GUUAM in April 1999 with the addition of Uzbekistan at the 50th anniversary summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).

However, Uzbekistan recently found common ground with Moscow and concluded a security treaty with Russia in May 2000. The SCO is also set to challenge yet another project backed by the West - the TRACECA program to develop a transport corridor on a west-east axis from Europe, across the Black Sea, through the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea to Central Asia.

The SCO's prime ministers are due to meet next fall in Kazakhstan to discuss trade between member states, including a SCO-based "Silk Road" project. Since the TRACECA was designed to circumvent Russia, the SCO-sponsored "Silk Road" may become yet another blow to Western policies in Central Asia.

However, the SCO leaders refrained from overt anti-Western pronouncements and instead argued that the new group is open to all potential applicants. So far, there have been no new applications to join the SCO, though Mongolia, Iran and probably the United States itself might consider such a move, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

In Shanghai, the SCO's six leaders also signed the Shanghai Convention to Combat Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, which is supposed to be a basis for subsequent deals on a joint anti- terrorism center in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

A recent northward advance by the Taliban, which rules most of Afghanistan, has sparked concern that it could cause instability throughout Central Asia. Last fall, dozens of well-armed Islamic rebels crossed into Kyrgyzstan from neighboring Tajikistan. The Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is now widely viewed as a major hub and training center of various radical Muslim and separatist groups.

Concerns about Muslim separatism also worry Beijing, due to outbreaks of unrest among the Muslim Uighur minority - a Turkic- speaking group in its westernmost Xinjiang region that borders Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the wake of the Soviet collapse and Russia's withdrawal from Central Asia, "a sort of power vacuum" has emerged in the region, Putin was quoted as saying. Now this vacuum is being filled by "religious extremists and terrorist organizations", so joint efforts are needed to control the situation there, he said.

Still, it might be argued that a would-be anti-terrorist body of the SCO has some inept antecedents. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet nations, already has an Anti-Terrorist Center that has yet to produce any meaningful results.

Thus, it remains to be seen whether the SCO or its anti- terrorist body can fill this perceived vacuum and address security concerns in Central Asia, or become another paper tiger like the security treaties between post-Soviet states.

(Inter Press Service)

back to the top

©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.

Building B - 5th Floor, 102/1 Phra Arthit Road, Chanasangkhram, Bangkok 10200, Thailand