Analysis: China boosts presence in Central Asia By Martin Sieff Senior News Analyst
Washington, DC, Sep. 24, 2004 (UPI) -- China is energetically moving to beef up its military presence and influence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, taking advantage of the growing concerns about Islamist militants.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabiao made his giant nation's willingness to cooperate with Russia and its Central Asian neighbors in the fight against guerrillas a leading theme of his swing through the region this week
On Thursday, Wen told a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, also known as the Shanghai Pact in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek that terrorism, separatism and extremism constituted the three main threats to the region's peace and stability.
Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- the six member nations of the SCO -- face the challenge of working together to make regional anti-terror institutions operate more effectively, Wen said. The SCO members had to step up their exchange of information and promote far greater coordination between their law enforcement departments, he added.
Back in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan emphasized the prime importance China attached to strengthening the Shanghai Pact. The Bishkek summit and the documents it had adopted will "be of great importance for the future development of the regional operation," he said.
The SCO was set up in 1996, but it was vastly strengthened and effectively recast in its current form at a summit in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 -- the same day President George W. Bush gave a speech in Warsaw pledging to further expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to embrace former Soviet republics such as the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Russia like China eagerly promotes the SCO as a body to keep not just Islamist separatists but also U.S. influence under control -- and roll it back -- in the heartland of Asia. Both nations have repeatedly stated that they oppose what they call "uni-polarity" -- a Chinese and Russian diplomatic code word for U.S. influence in the heartland of Asia.
Indeed, at the 2001 Shanghai summit, China's then President Jiang Zemin insistently called the SCO the Shanghai Pact to draw a parallel with the old Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, which for decades opposed and blocked NATO in Central Europe.
The Shanghai Pact is planning a new rapid reaction "anti-terror" strike force. It is likely to form the new force to combat and respond to terrorist attacks in any of its member nations, Igor Rogachev, Russia's ambassador to China told the Interfax news agency Wednesday.
"The member countries (of the SCO) held their first anti-terror exercises in Kazakhstan and China in 2003. This kind of cooperation is opening up new horizons for development in the SCO," Rogachev said.
"I think the formation of a rapid-reaction collective force and joint counter-terrorist operations in the SCO space will become a reality in the near future," he added.
As Rogachev's comments indicated, Russian leaders agree with China on the need to strengthen the SCO.
"It is evident as never before that we need close correlation between practical economic cooperation and dealing with new challenges and threats. As we become strong economically, our unity in the anti-terrorist drive becomes stronger," Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told the SCO's Bishkek summit.
However, with its booming economy, insatiable appetite for oil and other energy resources, and boundless optimism as the world's fastest growing power, China has been seeking to extend its influence in Central Asia.
Wen has also made clear on his trip that China is ready to beef up its direct bilateral military relations with countries in the region.
On Wednesday, he told Abdygany Erkebayev, speaker of the Kyrgyz Parliament, "Our country is ready to support steps on the part of the Central Asian countries to counter terrorism and other evils, as well as ensure stability and security."
Wen also pledged to increase China's military-technical cooperation with Kyrgyzstan. He praised the way the country's economy and social sector were progressing, promising further support "for Kyrgyzstan's development course," the report said.
Wen and Kyrgyz Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev also announced that next week their countries would start construction of a new oil pipeline to link oil-rich Kazakhstan with energy-hungry China.
Back in June, Kazakhstan signed an agreement with China's National Petroleum Corp. to build the new pipeline from Kazakhstan's oil-rich Caspian Sea reserves to China's own "western frontier," its great, booming northwest province of Xinjiang. Eventually the pipeline is planned to extend all the way to Shanghai, China's financial center at the heart of its southeast industrial region, which has supplanted America's "foundry" northeast region as the new "workshop of the world."
China's growing clout in central Asia has been quietly developing for years. But Wen's evident enthusiasm for the process reflects the renewed energy that China's new "fourth generation" leadership is bringing to the task.
Former President Jiang stepped down earlier this month from his last remaining power position, running China's Military Commission. That leaves the way clear for his successor President Hu Jintao and his right-hand man, Prime Minister Wen, to take a more confident, higher profile in pushing China's interests in the region.
The tides of history have shifted in Central Asia for the first time in half a millennium, maybe even longer. China's tide is on the rise, and the shifting balance within the SCO reflects it.
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