US sidelined as Central Asia’s ‘Great Game’ intensifies

The SCO is taking steps to tighten its grip on security and energy deals
in the region, writes Benjamin Robertson

South China Morning Post
8 July 2005

A fresh salvo was fired this week in the ongoing “Great Game” of
international power play when the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation
(SCO), a security alliance dominated by China and Russia, urged the US
and its allies to set a timetable for troop withdrawal from Central
Asian republics.

In a reference to a term coined in the 19th century to describe the
heated rivalry between Russia and Britain as the two powers competed
for influence among Central Asian rulers, analysts say that in the new
game, the rules are the same and only the players are different.

“Central Asia is a chessboard for competing interests,” says Alexander
Neill, head of the Asia Security Programme at the Royal United
Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London. “It
has huge energy resources and when you look at China’s multilateral
engagement, the SCO is clearly something they’re concentrating on in
order to compete with American interests in the region {hellip} it’s a
game of energy strategy more than anything else.”

Formally created in Shanghai in June 2001 as a security forum to
combat terrorism, the SCO’s member states include China and Russia, as
well as the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Since 2001, it has evolved into an
economic, energy and security forum. At this week’s meeting in
Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana, Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia
were permitted to attend with observer status, a possible sign of
ambitious expansion plans for the organisation.

In a joint declaration, SCO members said: “We support and will support
the international coalition, which is carrying out an anti-terror
campaign in Afghanistan, and we have taken note of the progress made
in the effort to stabilise the situation. As the active military phase
in the anti-terror operation in Afghanistan is nearing completion, the
SCO would like the coalition’s members to decide on the deadline for
the use of the temporary infrastructure and for their military
contingents’ presence in those countries.”

America and France have troops based in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan.

Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Central Asia is seen by Russia and
China as their backyard. Ruled by authoritarian leaders who are
routinely criticised by human rights observers, the region is also
home to extremist Islamic groups.

The comparatively recent American presence, in the form of oil money
and troops – while initially welcomed by Central Asian states as part
of the “war on terror” and a counterbalance to Russia’s own designs on
its former provinces – now appears to be under threat.

After last year’s “orange revolution” in Georgia – when president
elect Viktor Yanukovych was forced to step down in the face of popular
protests and allegations of electoral fraud – and this year’s unrest
in Kyrgyzstan, when president Askar Akaev fled the country to Russia,
the suspicion is that America is trying to overthrow the area’s
traditionally dictatorial and pro-Russian leaders.

Talking at the conference, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov
suggested that outside forces were at work “to create instability and
undermine the region economically in order to impose their own
development model”.

After a massacre in eastern Uzbekistan in May this year, when
government troops reportedly killed hundreds of protesting civilians,
America and other western countries called for an independent inquiry.

Mr Karimov refused, and subsequently curbed America’s flying rights
from its airbase near the capital of Tashkent. Enter China. Only a
week after the massacre Mr Karimov was being feted in Beijing, his
security policies supported, and a US$600 million oil and gas joint
venture signed.

Critical of other countries when they raise issues such as human
rights, Tibet or Taiwan – all issues Beijing says are internal affairs
– China does not knowingly tie its trade deals to preconditions on
political reform or human rights improvements.

In recent years China has been adept at filling the vacuum left by
western companies either forbidden to, or unwilling to do business in
countries that have become international pariahs. Those countries
include Sudan, Zimbabwe, Nepal and Myanmar.

This week’s announcement by the SCO appears to be the next move in
China’s game of chess. Taking advantage of a rise in anti-American
sentiment among Central Asian leaders, China, along with Russia, is
hoping to woo regional statesmen into signing firmer security and
energy deals.

Behind this is not only China’s own strategic concerns in keeping
Central Asia free of US troops – a concern that some speculate stems
from the idea that America is trying to create a containment circle to
control a rising China – but also from China’s insatiable energy
needs.

Already consuming 5.5 millions barrels of oil a day, 30 per cent of
which is imported, the US Energy Information Administration estimates
China’s demand will rise to 11 million barrels a day by 2025.

Although the majority of imported oil is currently shipped on tanker,
the ongoing construction of pipelines across China and into Central
Asia may soon change this. “China definitely wants to secure resources
now heading west, and divert them to head eastwards,” says Mr Neill.

In part, the success of this policy will depend on what the SCO can
become. Greeted with some scepticism by western observers when it
first began, the organisation has since mushroomed.

Having taken over the presidency this year, it seems likely that China
will press to include the four nations granted observer status at this
week’s conference. “They don’t want to give the impression that the
SCO is a home-grown baby {hellip} the Chinese are playing a game to
tidy up their international image and will try and create a major
movement {hellip} though not necessarily at the expense of creating
leverage against Asean or Apec,” says Mr Neill.

Chinese observers concur. “We see the SCO as a possible forum for
ironing out differences in Asia,” says Mei Renyi, an expert on Sino-US
relations at the Beijing Foreign Language University. “As long as it
helps to bring peace and stability in the area, we would like to see
the SCO continue. How it develops will depend on how the incorporation
of observer nations develop.”

One thing is clear – America will not be invited to sit at this table.