Central Asia steers clear of becoming a geopolitical playhouse

Due to its terrestrial location to sit at confluence of China, Russia, South Asia and the Middle East and its potential to serve as a gateway to Europe, Central Asia has long captured attention of global powers. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine and the great power rivalry have considerably elevated the region’s strategic importance.

Still, Washington neglected Central Asia once it shifted focus from South to Southeast Asia to offset the China threat. Even in early years of the Ukraine crisis, America’s interest was absent until President Joe Biden hosted a summit with regional leaders in September and pledged to solidify partnership including through investment in and development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

The so-called Middle Corridor — which begins from Southeast Asia and China, runs through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and further to European countries — holds a great significance in terms of trade and reduced travel times. What effectively drove America to the region was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Central Asian leaders in May that promised to seal close economic and security relations.

An overriding goal behind the EU wooing of region is to end its reliance on Russian oil and gas, seek an alternative corridor and diversify its sources of critical raw materials. The US too sees Central Asia as critical to seize rare earth minerals. Biden’s newfound initiative to ameliorate relations with the region is hence reactionary rather than proactive, intending to take advantage of Central Asia’s geopolitical and geostrategic importance.

But challenges to this policy emanate from Central Asia’s close ties with China. The trade between Beijing and Central Asia in 2022 hit $70 billion with Kazakhstan accounting for $31 billion and Xi and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev agreeing to build an “enduring friendship” and share “weal and woe”.

The region has struck a very fine balance in its approach toward both Europe and Russia. It was on display when Central Asia welcomed EU leaders, and Kazakhstan received applauds from French President Emmanuel Macron for “refusing to be a vassal of any power”, a veiled shot at Russia while hailing the Kazakh relations with Russia as “multi-faceted”.

Kazakhstan is the biggest player in Central Asia for being a large economy and its role to act as a transit route for transportation of goods between Asia and Europe. This unique position has urged Astana to remain stick to its multi-vector foreign policy, which seeks good relations with all.

This equilibrium has helped the region to prevent it from becoming a theater of a new “great game” with Europe stepping into the “backyard” of China and Russia. Europe’s or US’s abrupt note of Central Asia’s geostrategic importance, following decades of the region’s abstraction from their priorities, cannot change this strategy overnight.

Tweaking this balanced policy isn’t needed either given that it has helped Astana and region safeguard its national interests by simultaneously sustaining strong trade ties with Beijing and Moscow, benefiting from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), becoming a critical mineral supplier to Brussels and maintaining good relations with Washington.

Uzbekistan is also actively pursuing an omnidirectional policy. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s recent visit to Beijing where he upgraded the Uzbekistan-China relationship to “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership”, following meetings with EU leaders, showed Tashkent was open to every country, keen to invest and contribute to the Uzbek economy.

By implementing trans-Afghan corridor, the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway project, Tashkent seeks to leverage this and other projects to enhance its attractiveness as a trans-regional transit bridge. The corridor has a great potential in terms of pushing trade and improving regional connectivity as three countries continue to hold discussions.

Initiatives such as CASA-1000, designed to transport 1,300 megawatt of hydropower from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, could contribute to the Afghan and Pakistan’s clean transition and struggle against climate change and power outages, with World Bank extending financial support to implement the project. Ashgabat, meanwhile, has also been making efforts to revive the dormant TAPI gas pipeline.

Like South Asia — one of the world’s least integrated regions due to conflicts, inter-state rivalries and great power competition — Central Asia is poorly connected to one another and rest of the world, hindering connectivity for decades. But unlike South Asia, Central Asia has managed to overwhelm geopolitical competition and capitalise on their strategic location.

While Mirziyoyev approached Qatar in December to back trans-Afghan corridor, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon met with World Bank president to jumpstart the CASA-1000. Dushanbe has also extended its electricity supply agreement with Taliban, which will help it to influence Kabul to expedite work on the CASA-1000.

These attempts are backed by China whose foreign minister in May produced a joint statement with his counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan, supporting extension of CPEC to Afghanistan as well as trans-Afghan railway, CASA-1000 and TAPI projects as initiatives to enhance regional connectivity and prosperity.

As Kazakhstan has removed Taliban from its terrorist list, this will help Astana to retain its access to large Afghan, Pakistani and Indian markets and create new transportation and logistics routes in the region to enter the Gulf and the Middle East through Pakistani ports of Karachi and Gwadar, bringing a boon for Kazakh exporters and economy.

In 2019, Chinese and Kazakh leaders agreed to implement the cooperation plan of connecting Kazakhstan’s Nurly Zhol (Bright Path) initiative with China’s Silk Road Economic Belt. Underpinned by its appeal to serve as an overland freight transport corridor between China and Europe, Kazakhstan is expected to drive economic growth over the next five years.

The world’s largest landlocked country, which referred to itself as a buckle in BRI, launched China-backed Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) in 2018. This ambition to transform Uzbekistan into a regional financial centre by becoming Luxemburg-style intermediary between large nations and a gateway for foreign investment in Central Asia is paying off as the AIFC as of 2022 registered 1,738 companies from 70 countries.

All these efforts and world’s growing interest in Middle Corridor are demonstrative of the region’s successful multi-vector foreign policy. In the middle of an intense geopolitical situation and great power competition, Central Asia has established the right balance in its foreign policy, which will turn it into a major Eurasian transport and logistics hub between North and South.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2024.

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