Central Asia in the Balance between China and Russia

New military agreement between Tajikistan and Beijing. The region's former Soviet republics are increasingly looking to the Chinese in the face of Putin's belligerent Russia. After the growth of economic relations, security relations between Central Asian countries and China are growing.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - China has signed a new military agreement with Tajikistan, without much fanfare, whereby Dushanbe agrees to regular anti-terrorist training with the Beijing Armed Forces on its territory. This comes at the end of a nightmarish year, amid threats from extremists crowding Taliban Afghanistan, and Russia's increasingly devastating military operations in Ukraine, which affect the lives of Central Asian societies in many dimensions.

Chinese and Tajik troops have already carried out joint military exercises in the past: the last three times since 2015, but now they will be annual, clearly revealing Chinese ambitions in Tajikistan and throughout the region.

The shock caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after all, has changed many of the portrayals about the balance of forces in the region, and China offers the Central Asian countries a natural alternative to Russia, the former Soviet master who is increasingly fearful.

According to Temur Umarov, a Tajik contributor to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 'Dushanbe clearly wants to reduce its over-dependence on Moscow, but it is unclear how willing the Kremlin is to let this happen. The weakening of Russian economic power, as a result of Western sanctions and huge war expenditures, leads Central Asian nations to seek other trading partners, as the moves of Kazakh President Tokaev and his Tajik counterpart Rakhmon in recent months have shown.

Hence the frenetic diplomatic activism of these countries in Europe, which led European Council President Charles Michel to tour Central Asia in October, and European foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell in November. Tokaev and Uzbek President Mirziyoyev travelled to Paris to meet Macron to discuss various issues last month.

Relations with Turkey and Middle Eastern countries also intensified. XI Jinping's first post-pandemic trip abroad was to Kazakhstan in September, before attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan, where he met with a resigned Russian President Putin, grappling with the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

As Umarov points out, 'Central Asia has never been so caught between two fires as it is today', with the temptation to break the historic relationship with the Russians, and fears of Moscow's reactions. 'Red lines are constantly shifting, but for Russia it is crucial that Western influence in the region does not arise again', after the abandonment of 20-year control over Afghanistan, 'Russia does not want Central Asia to look westwards', the specialist concludes.

Anti-terrorist exercises by the Chinese in Tajikistan do not worry the Russians, who have given the Chinese increasing control over the Central Asian economy in the post-Soviet decades. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan owe Beijing billions of dollars, and Russia is hardly in a position to meddle. Dushanbe appears to be a crucial junction for the consolidation of the Chinese presence in the security sphere in the region, where Afghanistan and Pakistan are of great concern to Beijing, which fears Xinjiang's involvement in the unrest in the Central Asian area.

Together with the Tajiks, the Chinese guard the borders with Afghanistan at various military bases, although this is continually denied by both sides; Beijing contributes to the upgrading of the old Soviet arsenals in the area, building new military border outposts, and also intervening in the vast and restless Gorno-Badakšan region, which has created so many headaches for the Dushanbe government this year. Now the new agreement establishes intense joint activities over the next two years, with the clause of keeping the location and timing of the exercises secret.

Gone are the days when China was the 'big bank', and Russia the 'big cannon' of Central Asia: money is lacking, and cannons are being turned the wrong way, and new definitions of East and West are being sought, even if in Dushanbe, Bishkek and Astana one is still in the middle of them.

• central asia
• russia
• china
• economy
• soviet union
• security