China turns west: Beijing's contemporary strategy towards Central Asia

Pacific Affairs

Volumn 79, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 205-224

  Sheives, Kevin ^a  

^a BAYLOR UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FOREIGN POLICY; GEOPOLITICS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; REGIONAL SECURITY;

ASIA; BEIJING [CHINA]; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 33845635195     PISSN: 0030851X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5509/2006792205     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. This study will limit its focus to issues surrounding Chinese relations with the four Central Asian SCO member states: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Due to Central Asia's geographic proximity and for the sake of clarity, "region" and "regional" denote Central Asia as well as Xinjiang when discussing transnational issues such as peripheral stability, ethnic relations and terrorism.
2. Bates Gill and Matthew Oresman, China's New Journey to the West: China's Emergence in Central Asia and Implications for US Interests (Washington, DC: CSIS Press, 2003).
3. Niklas Swanstrom, "China and Central Asia: A New Great Game or Traditional Vassal Relations?" Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 14, no. 45 (November 2005), pp. 569-584.
4. Evan Medeiros and Taylor Fravel, "China's New Diplomacy," Foreign Affairs, vol. 82, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 2003), pp. 22-35.
5. David Shambaugh, "The New Stability in US-China Relations: Can the New Stability Last," in Jonathan D. Pollack, ed., Strategic Surprise?: US-China Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Newport, Rhode Island: Naval War College Press, 2003), pp. 23-34.
6. Avery Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), especially chapter 6. China's theory of a peaceful rise was first promoted through multiple venues by CCP official Zheng Bijian.
7. Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge, p. 132.
8. For the most exhaustive and comprehensive study on the domestic issues in Xinjiang, see Frederick Starr, ed., Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004).
9. Will H. Moore and David R. Davis, "Transnational Ethnic Ties and Foreign Policy," in David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).
10. Author conversations with Uighurs favouring independence in Urumqi, Xinjiang PRC, 2001. Some were willing to use quite violent means to overthrow Chinese rule, yet others wanted to use non-violent means such as media exposure through poetry, dance and other expressions of Uighur culture.
11. The phrase "the three evil forces" was promulgated by the PRC leadership and has found its way into a host of Chinese and SCO documents. Chinese scholars and government officials often use "sange jiduanzhuyi" (three extremisms) in place of "sangu e shili" (three evil forces).
12. Michael Swaine and Ashley Tellis, Interpreting China's Grand Strategy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000).
13. Graham Fuller and Jonathan Lipman, "Islam in Xinjiang," in Frederick Starr, ed., Xinjiang. China's Muslim Borderland (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 341.
14. Dru Gladney, "Responses to Chinese Rule: Patterns of Cooperation and Opposition," in Frederick Starr, ed., Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 381.
15. Andrew Scobell, "Terrorism and Chinese Foreign Policy," in Yong Deng and Fei-ling Wang, eds., China Rising: Power and Motivation in Chinese Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 317.
16. Yitzhak Shichor goes further to suggest that there is little threat from Islamic radicalism and Xinjiang and that Beijing greatly overemphasizes the threat to make political gains domestically and internationally. See Yitzhak Shichor, "Fact and Fiction: A Chinese Documentary on Eastern Turkestan Terrorism," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly (May 2006), pp. 89-108.
17. Matthew Oresman, "China's Reaction to the Kyrgyz Revolution," Central Asia-Caucusus Analyst, 6 April 2005.
18. PRC Foreign Ministry Spokesman Kong Quan, Press Conference, 24 May 2005, Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
19. "Uzbekistan President Karimov on Visit to PRC," Xinhua, 25 May 2005, FBIS.
20. "Jiaqiang Minzu Tuanjie Jiegoujian Hexie Xinjiang" [Strengthening National Unity and Constructing a Harmonious Xinjiang] Xinjiang Ribao, 25 May 2005.
21. "Text of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Foreign Ministers' Statement," Xinhua News Service, 7 January 2002, FBIS.
22. The author would like to thank Matthew Oresman, cofounder of the China and Eurasia Forum, for this point made during October 2005 discussions.
23. Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge, p. 124.
24. Martha Brill Olcott, "The Great Powers in Central Asia," Current History vol. 104, no. 8 (Nov 2005), p. 335.
25. China Energy Group, China Energy Databook, vol.6. (San Francisco, CA: China Energy Group, June 2004), table 7A1.2. All energy volume statistics are measured in tons of standard coal equivalent (Tce) or million tons of standard coal equivalent (Mtce).
26. Yang Zhongqiang, "Zhongya Shiyou yu 21 Shiji de Zhongguo Shiyou Anquan" [Central Asian Oil and Chinese Energy Security in the 21st Century] Guoji Luntan, vol. 3, no. 1, p. 4, author translation.
27. Erica Downs, "The Chinese Energy Security Debate," China Quarterly, no. 177 (March 2004), p. 31.
28. For a more detailed discussion of the Kazakhstan-China pipeline and its implications for China's foreign economic policy during its implementation stages, see Kevin Sheives, "China and Central Asia's New Energy Partnership: Keeping Things in Perspective," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly (February 2005), pp. 16-19.
29. Statistics compiled by the author from China Energy Databook, vol.6.
30. The three pipelines are the Russian-Daqing oil pipeline and the two Sino-Kazakh oil and gas pipelines. As previously mentioned, the credibility of the Daqing project is continually in question.
31. Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge, p. 12.
32. June Teufel Dreyer, "Encroaching on the Middle Kingdom? China Views its Place in the World" in Christopher Marsh and June Teufel Dreyer, eds., US-China Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Policies, Prospects, and Possibilities (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003), p. 94.
33. Frederick Starr, "Power Failure: American Policy in the Caspian," Nalional Interest, no. 47 (Spring 1997).
34. US General Accounting Office, "Central and Southwest Asian Countries: Trends in U.S Assistance," (Washington, DC: USGAO, May 2003). These figures remain consistent with 2001-2005 estimates from the U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants Greenbook.
35. For one of the many examples, see Chen Lianbi "Sange 'Jiduanzhuyi'yu Zhongya Anquan" [The Three Extremisms and Central Asian Security] Dongou Zhongya Yanjiu, no. 5 (2002).
36. The text of the June 2005 Astana declaration can be found at the SCO's Web site, http://www.sectsco.org/news_detail.asp?id=500&LanguageID=2, "Declaration of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,"June 20, 2006.
37. State Department official, interview by author, Washington, DC, November 2005.
38. Swanstrom, China and Central Asia, p. 570.
39. Swanstrom, China and Central Asia, p. 582.
40. Zhao Huasheng, director of Russian and Central Asian Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, interview notes, October 2005.
41. State Department official, interview, November 2005.