Development of China’s Central Asian policy (1992-2000)

The paper aims at discerning major trends and periods of the development of China’s policy in Central Asia within the context of the general tendencies of Chinese foreign policy’s evolution. Relying on official documents, statistics, and research literature, the authors analyze the whole complex of PRC’s relations with Central Asian states, which allows tracing substantial changes in Beijing’s approach to the policy in the region often concealed behind the statements on foreign policy continuity. In the first half of the 1990s the fundamental goal of Chinese diplomacy consisted in providing the “stable and peaceful” external environment allowing for the concentration of efforts on the continuation of economic reforms. Central Asia was important for Beijing primarily in the context of securing the country’s Western borders. The Chinese leadership saw the region as the “strategic rear”. The developments in Central Asia were to be kept within the limits that would allow Beijing to concentrate the necessary resources on the foreign policy priorities, the South-East and the North-East Asia. The development of economic links with the Central Asian countries and the potential role of Kazakhstan as oil exporter were of secondary importance. The Chinese leadership saw the Russian military and political leadership in Central Asia as a necessary condition of maintaining regional stability. China acknowledged that the preservation of Russian leadership in Central Asia was an alternative preferable to the growth of US and Turkish influence or the spreading of radical Islam in the region. In the second half of the 1990s the objectives and instruments of China’s policy in Central Asia came under substantial, although gradual, revision. The tenets of China’s foreign policy were expanded to include the thesis about China as a “responsible great power” ready to carry its share of the burden to provide international security. China began to expand its participation in maintaining stability in Central Asia that became the focus of its policy in the region. Facing Russia’s diminishing capacity to live up to its military, political and economic commitments in Central Asia, Beijing started to substitute the policy of creating fertile ground for a joint Chinese - Russian leadership in Central Asia for the policy of recognizing Russian regional leadership. The authors conclude that by the end of the decade China’s presence in Central Asia became region-wide and comprehensive, encompassing the areas of security, oil and gas production and transportation, transport communications and trade. China’s influence in the region expanded. Under the “Shanghai Five” mechanism, both a framework of China’s involvement in maintaining regional stability and an instrument of coordinating Russian and Chinese policies in Central Asia were established.

Keywords

Authors

References