Has the U.S. got its eye on the right ball in Kyrgyzstan?
July 26, 2010 by Ann Snider
Filed under Covering Conflicts, Terrorism & National Security
WASHINGTON – When opposition forces toppled Kyrgyzstan’s government in April, many Americans would have been hard-pressed to find the country on a map, despite the fact it’s home to an American air base that provides a key supply line to troops in Afghanistan.
Simply looking at a map would tell you how disjointed U.S. policy in the region is, says Paul Goble, an expert on Eurasian issues who has served in various capacities in the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department. Although U.S. efforts have remained fixated on Russian influence in the former-Soviet region, the country does not in fact share a border with Russia – but it does with China.
“There is a very large geopolitical switch going on that Americans are not ready for,” Goble said. “China is simply going to be the biggest player in the region. Russia doesn’t have the leverage it once did.”
With its booming population and industry hungry for raw materials, China is roaming the world in search of energy supplies and minerals. In its backyard of Central Asia, it is investing billions in infrastructure including pipelines, railroads and highways. Earlier this year the first segment of an oil pipeline stretching from Turkmenistan to China opened up. The project signifies what many experts say is a shift in the region’s petroleum resources away from Russia and toward China.
“Economic interests are the Chinese entryway into Central Asia and Eurasia,” said China expert Russell Hsiao of the Jamestown Foundation. “Kyrgyzstan is a pretty crucial piece in the whole of the puzzle.”
In the near-term, most analysts agree that Russia poses the greatest threat to America’s primary interest in the region – the Manas Air Base, which provides a critical link in the supply chain to U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Last year, the now-deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev agreed to end the U.S. contract for the air base after receiving a promise for more than $2 billion in aid from Russia. Bakiyev later reversed, after receiving the initial installment of Russian aid, when the U.S. agreed to pay more than three times the original rent for the base. Now, there is wide speculation that Russia supported the revolution that deposed Bakiyev in early April.
But, while a heavy-handed media blitz tends to accompany Russia’s tactics, Chinese policies are subtler. The flood of top provincial party leaders that travelled to the bordering Chinese province of Xinjiang in the days after the revolution, and the reported financial support China has lent the provisional government, underscore the Chinese leadership’s vested interest in the country.
In addition to being a hinge in China’s plan for expansion into Central Asia and Eastern Europe, Beijing fears that Kyrgyzstan raises the specter of unrest on its borders. Their particular concern is that the unrest could spread to the Muslim Uighur population, which makes up more than half of Xinjiang province, and which has members in Kyrgyzstan.
Chinese economic interests and the country’s desire for stability in the region do not directly conflict with U.S. goals in Kyrgyzstan. Satiating the Chinese appetite for oil with resources in Central Asia, in fact, could prevent the country from undertaking measures that conflict more directly with U.S. interests. Analysts warn, though, that Chinese economic policy lacks the ideological prerequisites that the West has come to expect.
“They’re willing to bribe, they’re not concerned about human rights violations, their businesses can deal with corrupt practices that our businesses can’t,” Goble said.
And while Chinese leadership is not directly threatened by the revolution, some authoritarian leaders in the region such as Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and Nursultan Nazarayev of Kazakhstan – with whom China has vested economic relationships – are.
“If they’re able to hold free and fair elections, which has never happened in this region before, then it’s going to be a huge threat to some countries in this region,” said Erica Marat, a Eurasia expert. “None of them want Kyrgyzstan to become a good example.”
As the U.S. navigates relations with the provisional Kyrgyz government – a task made more difficult by allegations that the American military knowingly purchased corrupt fuel contracts that benefited the deposed leader’s family – regional experts warn that policy makers should keep an eye on the East as well as the West.
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