From words to actions
Izvestia quoted the statement of the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Mr. Donald Lu, saying, “We are engaged in an important war in South and Central Asia. This is a war to compete with Russia, China, as well as to prevent terrorist activities.”
According to Donald Lu, the Central Asian region is becoming a particularly important arena for “US competition with China and Russia.” Lu cited Kazakhstan as an example, stressing that “financial support for local media from Washington will “allow to reduce the level of interference from Russia and other countries.”
In addition, at a hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, Mr. Donald Lu stated that the Biden administration has launched a support program for migrant workers deported from Russia, with the aim of creating jobs for them in their home country. According to Mr. Lu, the US administration has asked Congress to allocate 220.7 million USD for Central Asian countries, especially to reduce the growing influence of Russia and China.
C5+1 Summit. Photo: Astanatimes
Last September, US President Joe Biden hosted Central Asian leaders for the C5+1 Summit (a cooperation mechanism between the US and five Central Asian countries) in New York - a historic event marking the first time a US President attended a C5+1 meeting. Washington and its partners discussed a range of topics including regional security, economic cooperation and sustainable development, thereby emphasizing the US's growing interest and contribution to the region.
The United States and the European Union (EU) have recently shown increasing interest in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor (TITR), a transport network spanning Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus, which has emerged as an alternative to Russian-controlled shipping routes. Over the past 30 years, the route has seen increased traffic, especially since February 2022, when Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine.
According to TITR Association Secretary General Gaidar Abdikerimov, 25 shipping companies from 11 countries are currently participating in TITR. In the past 10 months alone, more than 2,256 million tons of cargo have been transported through the corridor. Earlier this year, European and international financial institutions announced a $10.8 billion commitment to develop TITR, aiming to reduce dependence on Russia’s Northern Route (NSR), Modern Diplomacy reported.
In a related move, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will attend the Japan-Central Asia Summit in Kazakhstan this August. According to The Yomiuri Shimbun, the summit will be held on the occasion of Prime Minister Kishida's visit to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia from August 9 to 12. This will be the first summit between Japan and Central Asian countries (including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) with the aim of strengthening Japan's commitments to the region through discussing a range of issues, especially economic cooperation.
According to political analysts, the increasing interest of the US and its allies in Central Asia shows the great attraction of this region. First, that attraction comes from the unique geographical and geopolitical location of this region. Central Asia is also known to have large reserves of oil, natural gas and other resources.
Countries with the region's leading natural gas reserves include Turkmenistan (ranked 6th in the world) and Uzbekistan (ranked 19th in the world). Kazakhstan currently has oil reserves of 30 billion barrels, ranking 12th in the world. In the context of the EU's goal of being completely independent of energy imports from Russia by 2027, gas supplies from Central Asia are a goal that these countries cannot ignore.
In addition, the United States and its allies want to expand alternative trade routes in Central Asia, increase shipping capacity, and strengthen cross-border electronic payment systems; build and modernize infrastructure along the trans-Caspian trade routes; identify logistics bottlenecks and make recommendations to governments and the private sector to improve key port, rail, and maritime logistics hubs in Central Asia.
Commenting on this issue, Razil Guzaerov, a junior researcher at the Department of Central and Post-Soviet East at INION RAS, said that the focus of recent cooperation between the US and its allies with Central Asia is on infrastructure development in the region. The US and its allies' active investment in Central Asia will lead to a reduction in infrastructure and transport interactions between the countries in the region and Russia; therefore, Moscow risks losing a significant amount of cargo transportation and other interaction options. In addition, the US and its allies are also aiming to compete with China's Belt and Road Strategy/OBOR. Valuable investments, as well as the scientific and technological strengths of Western countries, can threaten Beijing's position in this field.
Can the US and its allies overwhelm Russia and China in Central Asia?
Izvestia newspaper quoted expert Razil Guzaerov as saying that for a long time, the US and its Western allies have not paid enough attention to the Central Asian region. However, the important geostrategic role of Central Asia and the growing influence of Russia and China in this region have forced the US and Western countries to change their views and adjust their policies in an attempt to draw countries in the region out of the influence of Russia and China.
“Leaders from the US, EU and UK have been visiting Central Asia with the main goal of persuading the countries of this region to join the sanctions against Russia. However, the intentions of the US and Western countries seem to be ineffective when Central Asian countries advocate balancing relations with major powers,” said expert Razil Guzaerov.
Economically, China’s influence in Central Asia is unquestionable as it is emerging as the region’s leading trading partner. According to China Customs, China-Central Asia trade volume reached $89.4 billion by the end of 2023, up 27% from $70.2 billion in 2022. Of this, exports from the country of one billion people to the region reached $61.4 billion. This shows that Central Asia is one of the priority regions in China’s expansion strategy. Among the main tasks that Beijing is aiming for in the region are related to energy supply, access to mineral resources, creating efficient transport corridors and regional security.
Russia, meanwhile, cannot provide Central Asian countries with access to financial assistance, loans and investment to the extent that Beijing can, but it plays a particularly important role in the region in many other aspects, especially security and energy. Currently, Central Asia is facing many security challenges, as well as internal conflicts and instability around the region.
In particular, the conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan has undermined the unity within the Central Asian countries, hindering the countries' efforts to deal with external threats, such as the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and terrorism in Afghanistan that threatens to spread to Central Asian countries. Faced with this reality, Central Asian countries need support from Russia in its leading role as the CSTO to participate more deeply in resolving security instabilities in the Central Asian region. Russia and the CSTO have still demonstrated an important role in resolving instabilities in Central Asia. In January 2022, the CSTO helped the Kazakh government restore order after riots aimed at overthrowing the government of Kazakh President Tokayev. This shows that Russia is still an important factor in maintaining peace in the Central Asian region.
In the energy sector, the main challenges for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as well as for most Central Asian countries today, are a significant increase in domestic energy consumption, while the energy infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating. This is evidenced by the severe energy crisis that occurred in the winter of 2022-2023 in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, leading to disruptions in the supply of gasoline and electricity to consumers.
Although there is no denying that Western pressure has made Central Asian leaders somewhat cautious about deepening ties with Russia due to the potential risk of secondary sanctions from the West (such as their refusal to provide Russia with Mir cards in the region), increasing Russia’s role in the Central Asian energy sector would address many of the problems facing the region:
Firstly, Russia will help Central Asian countries quickly solve the problem of energy supply shortage and ensure political, economic and social stability in the region.
Secondly, the participation of Russian companies in the Central Asian market will create an opportunity to provide a new part of the consumer market for Russian natural gas.
Third, China is interested in the reliability and stability of hydrocarbon supplies from Central Asia, as well as ensuring the security of the associated gas pipelines. Russian gas supplies to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will allow these countries to not only solve the problem of meeting their growing domestic energy needs, but also maintain stable gas supplies to China.
Ha Anh
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/cac-nuoc-lon-canh-tranh-anh-huong-gay-gat-o-trung-a-post308641.html
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