China's Eurasian role

Sergei Solodovnik, Center of International Studies Russian Foreign Ministry's, Institute of International Relations, RIA Novosti, Moscow

Chinese representatives consider the Shanghai cooperation organization's summit, which took place in St. Petersburg last week, as a rather symbolic event. Most of the Chinese side's interlocutors will acquire a new quality during the summit. The leaders of all member-countries still retain their positions in the wake of this organization's 2001-vintage summit; however, interaction between regional countries and the Western world has acquired an entirely new essence nowadays.

Moscow has obtained a new status in the course of its dialogue with NATO; moreover, Central Asian countries, with the exception of Kazakhstan, have allowed Western countries to establish military bases on their respective territories.

This constitutes the main and most important challenge for Beijing. I'm talking about its subsequent relations with other partners, members of the Shanghai cooperation organization. It was intended to use regional forces and resources alone for the sake of fighting armed oppositions and Islamic extremism.

The organization's projected anti-terrorist center was seen as the only serious inter-state agency responsible for fighting trans-border terrorism before the fall of 2001. Beijing came to regard this particular aspect as a top priority after the Soviet Union's disintegration and after Russia's decision to withdraw its border-control units from the Central Asian -- Chinese border.

As is known, Uigur paramilitary units thus received an opportunity to cross that border in both directions. This led to a terrorist spree on the territory of China's Sinkiang-Uigur autonomous area throughout the 1990s.

Beijing regarded specific trouble-shooting options as both costly or risky. Chinese authorities could have pursued fleeing Uigur separatists on adjacent territories in violation of international law. The Chinese side also had a chance to plant quite a few undercover informers and law-enforcement officers in neighboring countries, subsequently using them to wipe out Uigur organizations.

And, finally, Beijing could have established multi-echelon defenses, i.e. a veritable Bamboo Curtain, along its entire border with Central Asia, thus nipping all mutual contacts in the bud. Nonetheless, China deliberately avoided implementing any of these scenarios,working consistently to create the required framework for joint activities with its neighbors.

Right now, the regional-structure option can be translated into life; however, such an entity will lack any monopoly rights whatsoever. Moreover, competition with U.S. military units, which are stationed in the region, seems possible. Bishkek, Dyushambe and Tashkent are highly unlikely to view their interaction with Beijing as a top-priority task at this stage.

Therefore the so-called regional-resistance principle, which was successfully applied by ASEAN in South-East Asia, and which bars extra- regional powers from dealing with regional crises, de facto becomes impracticable.

China will face several key strategic tasks in the course of the Shanghai cooperation organization's June 6 summit. The most important objectives are listed below.

Beijing should see to it that the Western market won't monopolize local hydrocarbon deposits for the next 10-15 years. China should also obtain its slice of the Caspian hydrocarbon pie. With this in mind, China should ensure uninterrupted and cost-effective West-East hydrocarbon supplies via Kazakhstan. However, this concept runs counter to current East-West transport routes.

Both Beijing and the Western anti-terrorist coalition have coinciding interests as regards specific goals of the fight against international terrorism. Meanwhile they are divided on the relevant methods for accomplishing this objective. China itself would like to compile a list of terrorist and national- liberation Islamic organizations.

Naturally enough, Beijing views Uigur organizations and the Hezb Et Takhrir organization, which advocates an Islamic caliphate for Central Asia, as terrorists. Meanwhile the Palestinians and Iranian muftis are perceived as freedom fighters. Therefore one can say that a serious Chinese-Western contradiction exists.

The United States believes that Nursultan Nazarbayev and Islam Karimov are bad only because they are ineffective macro-economic managers, who therefore breed social tensions. Meanwhile Beijing thinks that Karimov is a bad guy because he invited U.S. military units to his country. For his own part, Nazarbayev, who has enabled Western corporations to monopolize Caspian-shelf oil production, is also bad.

Consequently, these factors prompt us to analyze all the main contents of the Shanghai cooperation organization's activity. Will this entity be prepared to guarantee domestic political stability inside its member-countries? Will it take action in order to prop up local regimes in critical situations? Virtually all Central Asian members of the Shanghai cooperation organization view this issue as something important just because the West, which has deployed its military bases in the region, is obviously in no mood to provide such guarantees.