China Announces Central Asia Discussion Plans As China-Central Asia Summit Is Scheduled For May
Beijing is discussing a new format of interaction with Central Asia against the backdrop of Moscow’s increasing dependence on it. Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a congratulatory message to the various Central Asian leaders during the celebratory Navruz (New Year) holidays, stated that he would be glad to receive them on state visits to China for bilateral meetings and participation in the China-Central Asia summit, which will be held in May this year.
In the message to each of the Presidents, Xi announced significant development plans and areas of discussion to be held during the summit. during the upcoming meeting, citing the Central Asia News Service.
Ruslan Izimov, from Kazakhstan’s Centre for the Study of China and Central Asia, stated that “The very fact of initiating this format at the Heads of State Summit of Central Asian countries by Xi Jinping indicates that Beijing is fundamentally determined to tie our republics to itself in various forms. In 2019, the Chinese side has already created the C+C5 mechanism (China+Central Asia). But it was a traditional mechanism in which the heads of foreign affairs departments took part. Now such meetings will be at the highest level.”
According to Izimov, Beijing wants to prevent destabilisation within its Xinjang Province in Western China, and will make every effort to maintain stability in the countries of Central Asia and support the existing regimes to assist with this.
“This is partly why the new format of the summit of the heads of state of Central Asia and China is being initiated. In the same context, we can expect that China will bet on increasing its expertise in Central Asia,” Izimov believes.
All five countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are managed by authoritarian political regimes in which the constitution is systematically changed to suit the interests of authoritarian leaders. Beijing, which is a strategic partner of all countries in the region, expresses its absolute support to them and periodically declares that ‘colour’ revolutions in these countries will not be allowed. Moscow takes a similar position in the region.
Parviz Mullojanov, a political analyst, says that given Moscow’s growing economic and political dependence on Beijing, the Kremlin may continue to turn a blind eye to the growing Chinese role in Central Asia. “Probably, even if China announces its intention to open a military base in the region in the near future, Moscow will agree with this, since it will have no other option,” the expert notes. According to him, it is likely that Beijing has not yet decided whether they will take advantage of this opportunity or not.
According to China’s State-Owned People’s Daily, total Chinese investment in Central Asia at the end of 2020 was about US$40 billion, of which US$21.4 billion was invested in Kazakhstan. At the end of 2021, 7,700 Chinese firms were operating in Central Asia.
In January 2022, during a meeting with Central Asian leaders, Xi said he planned to increase China’s trade with the countries of the region to US$70 billion per annum. The upcoming May China-Central Asia summit can be expected to introduce infrastructure and other trade and development measures to underline how this can be accomplished.
Source: Exclusive Kazakhstan
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