‘ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE’

The Russian government, expert as it is in mystifying onlookers vis-à-vis its inner workings, similarly (and regularly) projects this opaqueness into the realm of international affairs. The latest developments, particularly regarding East and South-East Asia, are no exception. In the last few months it has not only continued to keep open its ties to China but has also courted North Korea and Vietnam. This has especially occurred in the context of arms shipments: Russian president Vladimir Putin in the last month met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il to hash out the purchase of weaponry from the ‘hermit kingdom’ (Loock 2023), and documents have been leaked by the New York Times describing Vietnamese weapons sales to Russia despite the former actively cosying up to the United States at the same time (Beech 2023). These actions, while Russia’s ongoing poor performance in its invasion of Ukraine overtly implies a need for weaponry, seem somewhat out of place given strong Chinese interests in the area. There may, however, be an answer hiding within the web of connections that the Russian government maintains to the south of its borders – that is, in Central Asia.

Setting the Scene

China and Russia have been staunch partners for the last thirty years (Linn 2023). They have normalised their once-disputed borders, collaborated on various economic initiatives, and supported each other through various sanctions and international disputes. When the Russian army began the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine a year and a half ago, Chinese premier Xi Jinping refused to condemn that venture of China’s largest neighbour and has since actively collaborated with Putin in contravention of present Western sanctions and stances towards Russia (Linn 2023).

It is assumed by many in the European and American security communities that this is not only due to the existing Russia-China relationship, but also because China still entertains the idea of subsuming into itself the island of Taiwan and ending the almost century-long tension between the Chinese mainland (under the People’s Republic of China) and the government to their southeast that still claims the pre-communist legacy of the Republic of China (Blanchard 2023). Such an action would fly in the face of the international status quo and directly challenge US and European interests in East Asia – much the same as Russia has challenged those norms in Eastern Europe. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and its conclusion (whenever that may occur) is essentially a ‘sandbox test’ for the same kind of manoeuvring that the Chinese government has contemplated pursuing since the days of Mao Zedong (Blanchard 2023; Culver and Lin, 2022).

One of the largest collaborations between these two countries has been their interactions in the Central Asian nations: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. The Russian government has long considered this region vital to its own security; it has been described as Russia’s ‘most stable region’ (Hess 2020). The leadership of these countries have also been highly amenable to Russian interests in the region, particularly in terms of oil and grain initiatives (Hess 2020, 2023). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, China also began to extend political and economic feelers into the same region, for the same reasons. Neither country wishes to tread on each other’s influence in the region, because to do so would be to destabilise the relationship between them and potentially destabilise the region as a whole – essentially, a feud in Central Asia between Russia and China would produce no benefit for either party, let alone whichever nation is used as the playing field between the two powers.

At the same time, China has an overlarge influence upon the countries surrounding it to its east and south. North Korea has relied on China for supplies and international support since its inception, and China in turn uses North Korea as a buffer between them and the US-friendly government in Seoul (Albert 2019). The North Korean government under Kim Jong-un, however, has stretched out a hand towards Russia to gain materiel that China would be unwilling to provide (Vu 2023) despite their overall reliance on China. Vietnam, on the other hand, views China as an antagonistic power especially due to Chinese military extension into areas of the South China Sea that Vietnam considers its own (Nguyen 2019; Tatarski 2023). To both nations and their neighbours, China is a foreign relations juggernaut to which all smaller neighbouring nations in some way either ‘bend the knee’ or take a stance against and considers both North Korea and Vietnam to be well within its ‘sphere of influence.’ For Russian foreign policy to suddenly [re]gain (or in the case of North Korea, reciprocate) interest in this area, particularly with little to no comment by Xi’s administration, is somewhat out of place.

The First Act

What, then, has occurred since February 2022 to change this political landscape? The obvious answer would be recent gains by Ukrainian forces and widely reported lack of modern weaponry within the Russian Armed Forces. This may, however, be a convenient cover for a shadier operation which originates with the fact that Russia’s ‘most stable region’ is no longer stable for Russia. One by one the Central Asian nations have turned away from their long-held ties to the Russian state, some quietly, some overtly.

Even before the invasion began, Kazakhstan – the only nation in the region to share a land border with Russia – experienced a severe political crisis and violent protests. The Russian government reacted strongly, jumping at the chance to send peacekeepers into the fray, though the prospect of a then-tentative Ukraine-NATO arrangement relegated Russian intervention in Kazakhstan to a minimal level (Davies 2023; Millan 2022). In the following months, the Kazakh administration under president Kassym-Jomart Toqaev balked at the Russian invasion of its southwestern neighbour and has clearly distanced itself from Putin’s regime in a series of outright statements and policy initiatives (Davies 2023; Dumoulin 2023). 

Uzbekistan too has distanced itself from Russia, though in a different fashion – slowly and quietly strengthening its political relationship with the European Union while at surface level maintaining the ties it has to the Kremlin (Kardaś 2023; Makhmudov 2023). Turkmenistan has similarly attempted to neutralise its relationship to Russia (Hess 2023; Reuters 2023), while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan face disputes between themselves over their shared border which Russia, preoccupied as it is with Ukraine, is hesitant to engage with (Hess 2023). Indeed, the Russian government sits largely powerless to continue to project its own influence over Central Asia as a region while its gains in Ukraine continue to lessen with time and the dearth of economic growth due to western sanctions only increases.

The Second Act

With the newfound lack of Russian presence in Central Asia, there remains a void in the power dynamic of the region both politically and economically. None of the five resident nations have enough power, in the broadest sense of the word, to fill that void, leaving it open to be filled by any ‘stronger’ power in whose interest it lies to occupy such a position. In this case, the glaring answer is the dragon-hegemon of the east: China.

Chinese economic ties within Central Asia put it in a prime position to take over the role that Russia once filled, particularly in terms of the lucrative gas and oil pipelines that have seen development in the last decade (Leahy 2023). While at face value deferring to nominal Russian political primacy in the region, there is no doubt that the prospect of any Central Asian nation pursuing closer ties with the West disturbs the set of policies that China has advanced in the region. In the last year, therefore, Chinese foreign policy has tentatively begun to tighten its hold on the region as much as it can while the Russian government occupies itself with Ukraine, following the old maxim ‘not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill’ (Sun 1910).

Of particular significance is the unveiling of a new economic plan for Central Asia by Chinese Premier Xi Jinping on March 19 (Hayley 2023). This appeared just over a year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, presumably, only when the Chinese government could be sure that Russian influence in the region was waning. The plan included – among other things – the acceleration of gas line construction, provision for $3.8 billion in general financial support from China to the entire Central Asian region, support for increased transportation links from China to the Caspian Sea, and references to a co-defence strategy in the works (Hayley 2023; Leahy 2023). Trade between China and the whole of Central Asia spiked in 2022 to $70 million, and it seems likely to continue this way (Hayley 2023). In addition, this plan was expounded at the China-Central Asia Summit hosted in Xi’an with the leader of every state in Central Asia in attendance (Leahy 2023). These events, particularly the mention of cooperation in defensive strategy, have shown that not only has China expanded its economic influence in the region, it is also actively usurping the role of political stabiliser that until recently was held quite firmly by Russia.

An Uneasy Intermission

The question that arises from these conclusions, connected as they may be, is still pressing: how, then, does this relate to Russian foreign policy overtures in the Far East? The answer, given the context provided above, is perhaps simpler than expected: the Russian government has managed to extricate itself from the fog of war and has cottoned on to Chinese interference in Central Asia. Russia, especially given long-term relations with Southeast Asia that have also recently faded (Kurlantzick 2023), is likely anxious to renew those ties and in doing so to directly challenge the regional sphere of the People’s Republic of China. This is not only in keeping with the Russian government’s general tit-for-tat strategy, as evidenced by the series of diplomatic sanctions that have occurred over the past ten years between Russia and various Western nations (Baker 2023; Reuters 2022; Toosi 2023), but represents a distinct step away from the image of ‘friendship with no limits’ (President of Russia 2022) between the Russian and Chinese governments. 

Gone are the days when both Russia and China had to support each other through their economic and political troubles after the fall of the Soviet Union. Though Russia is slowly becoming more dependent on Chinese imports as the progressively harsher Western sanctions take their toll, the reverse of that situation does not currently exist. Overall, the diplomatic ties between the two nations are a foreign policy masquerade done for appearances as much as anything else. It disguises the fact that the foreign policy requirements and goals of these two governments are quite different from one another, and that it is doubtless that they will clash more openly at some undetermined point in the future.

By Thys Millan

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Image: The Russian Presidential Press and Information Office (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/trips/54504/photos/48352)