What impact for China?

Recently signed border agreements between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan can embody a regional stabilization effort led by Centralian actors in a context of strong recomposition of power relations on a global scale. Donald Trump having so far shown little concern to restore American influence in Central Asia in the context of his new mandate, to what extent does China benefit from such a rapprochement?

The day after the agreements signed in Bichkek, on March 13, between the heads of state of Tajikistan and Kirghizstan, Mao Ning, representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, congratulated the two countries during a press point. She underlined the role held by Emomali Rahmon and Sadyr Japarov leaders, according to information reported by the official Chinese agency Xinhua and the Tadjike branch of the Russian media Sputnik.

As noted in February the no less official daily life of the people, this diplomatic culmination is based on a work of demarcation and diplomatic efforts carried out by the two countries since at least fall 2022. After a new episode of magnitude violence at the border between the two countries, which occurred on September 14, 2022, the two parties had declined the Russian mediation proposal.

Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan then undertook, not without difficulty, a work intended to break a cycle of dangerous violence for the two regimes, the attractiveness of the two countries and the whole of regional stability. Led under the benevolent gaze of China, it would be tempting to interpret this rapprochement as the effect of an increased Chinese influence in these ancient peripheries of the Soviet world, to the detriment of Russia. This Chinese influence is, moreover, often associated with a strong mercantile tropism, where Russia is more readily identified by its security postures.

If this analysis can be considered simplistic, even counterfactual by certain observers, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nevertheless actually has many reasons for rejoicing on such a development, which should also be recalled that the first actors remain the Tadjiks, Kirghiz, but also the Uzbeks jointly involved in these agreements.

A national security issue?

According to discourse developed by several strategic documents and doctrines of foreign policy made public by the People’s Republic of China, the effort to resolve border conflicts and cooperation led by the two former Soviet republics converges with the objectives of “Common security” and is part of a logic of ” priority “assimilating these questions to a national security issue for China.

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The Global Security Initiative introduced in 2022 by Xi Jinping claims a conception of original security, according to which security and insecurity cannot be considered as confined phenomena within a territory or a single country, but extend beyond the borders and affect the whole of the nations, united by “A community of destiny”. This principle applies to more reason to countries sharing borders with China, such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Formulated for the first time in 2002, during the 16th CCC congress, one of the cardinal doctrines of the Chinese foreign policy also incorporates the periphery of China into a larger vision, articulating security of the national sanctuary and its periphery with the ambitions of projections of Chinese interests. “The major powers are the key, the periphery is the priority, the developing countries constitute the base, and the multilateral framework is the scene” : This doctrine is today at the heart of Xi Jinping thought in matters of international policy.

The Belt and Road Initiative, officially announced by the same Xi Jinping during Astana’s speech in 2013, is the logical product of this vision and also mobilizes considerable security architecture.

The Ferghana valley in geostrategic competition

This conception of security cannot be dissociated from the Chinese imperial matrix and a long history marked by dynastic cycles of expansion and decline. During the Han, Tang or Qing dynasties, the peak periods of Chinese history correspond to strong Chinese commercial and military presences west of the Tarim basin and the Pamir mountains, and to the Ferghana valley, precisely in the heart of the disputes between Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ouzbékistan.

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These three countries have the status of “Global and sustainable strategic partner of the new era”which corresponds to the highest level of bilateral partnership in the diplomatic hierarchy established by Beijing. The political signal sent by these agreements projects a shared desire to resolve border disputes, stabilization of the regimes undertaken with Beijing, and promotes Chinese presence and penetration in these countries and beyond.

Today as in the past, Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan constitute strategic crossing points connecting the Chinese world to the Muslim world and the European world, partners particularly valued by Beijing. Stabilization of borders and a strengthening of regional cooperation is therefore a long -standing objective by China.

A context of weakening American influence

This brings a favorable context to the development of regional infrastructure projects, such as the China-Kirghizstan-Ouzbékistan railway, the layout of which results in the Uzbeke of the valley. After a long delayed departure, the work started last December. This line will have the advantage of significantly reducing the duration and transport costs between China, Uzbekistan and beyond, while bypassing Russia but also Kazakhstan, which houses an important alternative corridor to the Russian road.

Another large-scale transnational project crossing the Ferghana valley is CASA-1000, intended to supply Afghanistan and Pakistan with hydroelectric energy. Although this project is not a Chinese initiative, these two countries are at the heart of the CCC concerns, and any contribution to their economic integration can be well received by China.

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More generally, this diplomatic success is also part of a dynamic of reflux of the American presence in Central Asia. The evacuation of the manas base in Kyrgyzstan in 2014, the withdrawal of Afghanistan in 2021, more recently the announced freezing of the USAID by the new administration of Donald Trump, particularly heavy in a country such as Afghanistan, or the threat of the end of American funding of the Free Europe Radio Media constitute as many empty to the initiatives of the centralian actors, but also Chinese, Russian, Iranian or Indian.

Strengthen the Chinese presence in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan

The border agreement therefore consolidates the work of strategic depth that China establishes in these two countries. But by themselves, they arouse the interest of Chinese nationals and economic operators whose action abroad is closely controlled by the PCC.

Thus, in addition to the pollutants mining activities carried out by Chinese or Sino-Tadjiks groups, it should be noted that Tadjikistan is one of the world’s leading producers of antimony, a strategic material essential for technological competition that China leads with Washington. The exploitation of the largest vein in the country, located in Anzob, in the Ayni district, is also the result of the Consortium Anzob Liabibility Company (LLC), 49 % owned by American capital and 51 % by the Tadjik State, reports the Tadjik Asia-Plus media.

Read also on Novastan : “A historic day”: the agreement on the Kyrgyzo-Tadjike border signed

Finally, the Kyrgyz branch of Radio Free Europe reported in 2019 that 300 people had demonstrated in Bichkek against Chinese immigration and the granting of citizenship to Chinese marrying Kyrgyz women. Although the extent of this phenomenon is difficult to attest, it is part of a spread spread in Kyrgyzstan, a country sharing large borders with China and deemed to constitute an asylum for the Uighurs of Xinjiang.

China is not the only beneficiary of the agreement

Taking up American analyzes, some Chinese commentators have not failed to interpret the border conflict between Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan as a failure of the Russian security guarantor, noting the difference in treatment provided by Russia to this border crisis compared to the deployment of troops in the Caucasus, in the context of the conflict to Haut-Karabakh, by Turkish influence.

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In a somewhat veiled way, the origin of this conflict was attributed in this reading to Russian negligence as well as to the desire to maintain the monopoly of its old influence. Anyway, it should be noted that immersed after the agreement, it was indeed to Russia that President Tadjik Emomali Rahmon was going, with his success, while President Sadyr Japarov went to China in February, a month before the signing of the agreement, and that a central EU-Asie summit was held in early April, in Samarcande.

Jonathan Bonjean
Editor for Novastan

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