Russia is embroiled in a long-running war in Ukraine and is growing dependent on China for supplies, while Beijing moves quickly to expand its influence in Central Asia, once the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.
At the same time, Russia is also offering strong resistance from its side.
China's growing presence in the region is clearly visible during a meeting of the leaders of Central Asian countries with the presidents of China and Russia in the Kazakh capital Astana this week. New rail lines and other infrastructure are being built, while trade and investment are on the rise.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping was greeted by flag-waving Kazakh children singing in Chinese as he arrived in Astana on Tuesday. He praised ties with Kazakhstan, saying the friendship “has lasted for generations.”
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin expected to arrive on wednesday In Astana for the start of the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional grouping dominated by Beijing. The forum has for years focused mainly on security issues. But as the group has expanded its membership, China and Russia have used it as a platform to showcase their ambitions to reshape a global order dominated by the United States.
The grouping was founded by China and Russia in 2001 along with the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and has expanded in recent years to include Pakistan, India and Pakistan. Iran,
Although China has expanded its economic influence in Central Asia, it still faces challenges to its diplomacy as Russia seeks to tip the balance of members in the Shanghai Forum in its favour.
Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko is expected to attend this year's summit. He is one of Mr Putin's closest foreign allies, who relies heavily on Russia's economic and political support to stay in power. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he will attend this year's summit. Said Belarus will be declared a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at this year's summit. That would be a small diplomatic victory for the Kremlin.
In a major blow to Beijing, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not attending the summit this year. Mr Modi plans to travel to Moscow next week for his discussions with Mr Putin and is instead sending his Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to the summit in Astana.
Following Mr Putin's recent visits to two other neighbors of China, North Korea And VietnamTheresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia, Europe, Asia Studies in Brussels, said Mr Modi's upcoming visit to Moscow indicated that Mr Putin was still capable of building his diplomatic relationship separately from Beijing.
“He’s saying, ‘I have other options,’” Ms. Fallon said.
India joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2017 at the behest of Russia, while Pakistan also joined at the encouragement of China. But India's relations with China have always been strained. cool down Since then, following border clashes between their troops in 2020 and 2022.
While Mr Modi advocated closer ties when he took office a decade ago, the two countries now do not even allow direct commercial flights between each other.
Harsh V. Pant, a professor of international relations at King's College London, said India is becoming more concerned about the geopolitical balance of power in the region as China's influence grows and Russia's influence wanes. China and Russia have also forged friendly ties with Afghanistan's Taliban government, which has run the country since US forces left in 2021 and has long sided with Pakistan against India.
“As far as Russia's dominance is concerned, India has no problem with that,” Mr. Pant said. “But as China becomes more important and more powerful economically in Central Asia, and Russia becomes a junior partner, India's concerns will grow.”
Viewed more broadly, however, Russia's participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is mainly a rear-guard action to counterbalance the region's growing drift toward China. Mr Putin relies heavily on China to keep his economy and military production afloat amid Western sanctions, and in recent years his government has embraced Beijing's growing ties with the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. The huge gap between Russia's and Beijing's economic strength makes direct competition in Central Asia futile for the Kremlin.
Instead, the Kremlin has sought to retain some degree of influence in its former satellites on issues that are important to its national interests, including by participating in largely symbolic events such as the Astana summit. On Wednesday, Mr. Putin will hold six separate meetings with Asian heads of state in Astana, according to Russian state media.
Russia wants to maintain access to Central Asian markets to avoid Western sanctions. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has obtained billions of dollars worth of Western goods using Central Asian intermediaries. These include consumer goods such as luxury cars as well as electronic components used in military production.
Russia also relies heavily on millions of Central Asian migrants to bolster its economy as well as rebuild occupied parts of Ukraine.
Finally, Russia wants to cooperate with the governments of the Muslim-majority countries of Central Asia on security and in particular the threat of terrorism. These threats were highlighted earlier this year when a group of Tajik citizens committed suicide by hanging themselves. 145 people were killed The worst terrorist attack in Russia in more than a decade took place at a concert hall in Moscow. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for this attack.
Russia and China don’t just compete in Central Asia. They often cooperate because they see a shared interest in stable governance in the region that has little or no coordination with Western militaries, said Alexander Gabuev, director of the research group Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
“They see regional stability as dependent on authoritarian rule that is secular, non-Muslim and, to a certain extent, repressive domestically,” he said.
Beijing also has deep concerns in Central Asia that China could use its huge population and migration to take over the less populated region, said William Fairman, emeritus professor of Central Asian studies at Indiana University. Soviet officials fueled these fears for decades, he said, and even younger generations that did not grow up under Soviet rule now seem to share these concerns.
In Astana, the elephant in the room is likely to be the war in Ukraine. Some experts expect there will be much more public discussion about the war on a forum dominated by Beijing, because of its indirect support for Russia's war efforts.
Mr. Xi will also use his trip to advance his vision of building better transportation links across the region, said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. After the summit, Mr. Xi is scheduled to make a state visit to Tajikistan, where the U.S. State Department recently estimated that more than 99 percent of foreign investment comes from China.
Many of China's investments in Central Asia are in infrastructure. China signed a deal last month with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to build a new rail line across the two countries. The rail line will give China a shortcut for overland trade with Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, and beyond them to the Middle East and Europe. China has sought to expand its trade and expand its business. for the past 12 years Russia wants to expand rail traffic to deliver its exports to Europe, but now it wants to add a southern route as well.
“From a long-term, strategic perspective, this railway is very important,” said Niva Yau, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group specializing in China’s relations with Central Asia.
suhasini raj And Li You Contributed to reporting and research.
