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Niklas Swanstrom
This is the final issue of the China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly this year. The contributions to this issue take a broader look at the security situation in the China-Eurasia region with a particular focus on China’s role vis-à-vis both Russia and Central Asia. China´s role has increased in Central Asia, even if there are still uncertainties regarding the full extent and depth of that role. This influence is both political and economic but also relates to other issues, such as migration. All in all, it appears as if both China and Russia have consolidated their influence in Central Asia at the expense of other actors. This has reduced the leverage of the West both in the spheres of politics and energy access (...)
Bishkek: SCO’s Success in the Hinterland of Eurasia
Pan Guang
The 2007 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek went as planned, despite initial concerns about internal disturbances within Kyrgyzstan. A key highlight of the event was the signing of the “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Treaty on Long-Term Good Neighborly, Friendship and Cooperation” by the six member states. This treaty serves as a legal basis to conduct good neighborly relations. It brings the SCO one step closer towards practices that accord with international law (...)
Central Asia and the Regional Powers
Lowell Dittmer
Since its emergence as an independent cluster of states in 1992, Central Asia has attracted the attention of a number of powers, evoking discussion of a revived "great game" between China, Russia, and the United States. But the interests of the powers are not necessarily incompatible, and the Central Asian states also have their own interests. Which way will they turn? This article explores their options (...)
Sino-Japanese Competition for Central Asian Energy: China’s Game to Win
Jacob Townsend and Amy King
Sino-Japanese competition has a strong influence on international politics and is a major factor in the maintenance of Asia-Pacific stability. As economic giants with insufficient indigenous energy reserves, an inevitable sphere of rivalry is natural resources. This is heightened by Japan’s relative decline in economic performance vis-à-vis China, and longstanding political and military tensions between the two. The traditional domain for Sino-Japanese maneuvers is the littoral Pacific, but as they have become more willing to ‘think global,’ one of the first new arenas for resource competition has been Central Asia, home to significant oil, gas and uranium reserves (...)
In Search for a Normal Relationship: China and Russia Into the 21st Century
Yu Bin
The Sino-Russian strategic partnership dating back to 1996 has been in essence a normal relationship consisting of both cooperation and competition. Such a relationship, however, is perhaps the most challenging for both sides. After the “best” and “worst” times, Moscow and Beijing are learning to live with, if not love, one another. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), too, will provide a platform for the two sides to adjust their vital interests in Central Asia. In the foreseeable future, such a normal relationship, though “boring” compared with the previous heart-melting “honeymoon” and heart-breaking “divorce,” may prove far more mutually beneficial and enduring (...)
Political Development and Organized Crime: The Yin and Yang of Greater Central Asia
Niklas Swanström
Central Asia faces a great challenge in terms of political reforms and organized crime. In essence, organized crime has strengthened its position in the region steadily after independence, to the detriment of state stability and a free and independent economy as well as development in the political sphere. It has become apparent that organized crime inhibits political development, but also that weak states reinforce organized crime. Without doubt organized crime has increasingly strengthened its position in many states around the world, but the states of Central Asia are more affected than most other states. This article explores how the two phenomena of political reforms and organized crime interrelate in the Central Asian context (...)
Energy Supply and Demand in Eurasia: Cooperation between EU and Iran
Abbas Maleki
Energy diversification has emerged as one of the most important priorities for a majority of the European countries and the EU. Growing energy demand in Europe combined with a high reliance on Russia as an energy producer have led the EU to look to the Caspian Sea region for alternative energy resources, especially in natural gas. Iran has the 2nd largest natural gas reserves in the world and could assist Europe in diversifying supplies. This article argues that there is substantial potential for energy cooperation between Iran and the European countries, particularly Turkey. Increased Iranian participation in the Eurasian energy market, both as consumer and producer, could lead to other benefits including economic development and more efficient energy extraction (...)
State-building, Power-building, and Political Legitimacy: The Case of post-Conflict Tajikistan
Antoine Buisson
The UN-sponsored June 1997 General Peace Agreement put an end to the bloody civil war that had turned Tajikistan into a collapsed state. The ensuing peacebuilding process nurtured hopes for institution building and political liberalization. However, although central authority has been restored and stability has returned, the state remains weak today while the regime has become increasingly authoritarian since 2000. This article argues that this situation has much to do with the prioritization of a power-building strategy over state-building since the Kulobis took power (...)
Chinese Migration to Kazakhstan: A Silk Road for Cooperation or a Thorny Road of Prejudice?
Elena Sadovskaya
China’s dynamic economic growth, trade expansion and a huge demographic potential draw attention of policy-makers and researchers from all over the world. For Central Asian countries and particularly Kazakhstan, which borders China in the east, the issues of economic and trade cooperation, national and regional security and “demographic pressure” are especially relevant. There has been a rise in research interest recently towards economic and trade relations between Kazakhstan and China, which however did not extend to demographic and in particular, migration processes between two countries.This article seeks to fill this gap (...)
