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Central Asia
This Week in AsiaOpinion
Alessandro Arduino
Alessandro Arduino

Asian Angle | As instability brews in Central Asia, can China’s investment diplomacy in region still work?

  • Uncertainty on the rise as five Central Asian countries struggle with looming civil war, riots and possible confrontation with Russia
  • Coming summit in Uzbekistan could indicate how Beijing will seek to protect economic, security interests in region to counter Moscow’s influence

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Kazakh counterpart Mukhtar Tleuberdi during a meeting in Uzbekistan in July. The Central Asia region is critical to China, which shares almost 1,800km of borders with it. Photo: Handout via Xinhua
Alessandro Arduino
Since gaining independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the five Central Asian countries have mostly stayed out of the media glare. When they have hit the headlines, it is usually because of proximate events, such as the fall of Kabul to the Taliban last year.
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But now, internal tensions as a result of economic woes and external pressures from transnational terrorism and criminal organisations have created a tinderbox.

From a looming civil war in Afghanistan, which will directly affect Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, to riots in Kazakhstan and western Uzbekistan, or a possible confrontation between Moscow and Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan, uncertainty is on the rise.

This volatility has not gone unnoticed in China. In his recent book, Sinostan, Raffaello Pantucci, an expert on Central Asian security, notes that China is wary that Uygur militants will use Afghanistan to foster instability in Xinjiang. Adding to this old concern is a growing fear that Beijing’s other adversaries might seek to use Afghanistan as a base to target China or its interests from Central to South Asia.

These adversaries include the ever-widening range of militant groups in the region, such as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, the Turkestan Islamic Party in the Badakhshan area, and the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

While the European Union is focused on Ukraine and the United States is trying to juggle the Russian invasion and the Indo-Pacific, Beijing is in full crisis management mode along its “near abroad”. Next month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, to be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, will amplify how the Central Asia region is a source of worry in China, other Asian countries, and the Middle East.

Protesters take part in a rally over a hike in energy prices in Almaty, Kazakhstan in January 2022. Photo: AFP
Protesters take part in a rally over a hike in energy prices in Almaty, Kazakhstan in January 2022. Photo: AFP

While Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were previously considered the weakest links in the area due to civil war and economies that have struggled to take off since independence, Kazakhstan – once regarded as the region’s poster boy – is now on shaky ground. Civil unrest early this year saw the deployment of more than 2,000 foreign paratroopers, mainly Russian, from the Collective Security Treaty Organization to stabilise the situation.

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