China's security interests in Central Asia

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Notes

1. For a survey of the oil and gas resources in Central Asia, see John Roberts, ‘Caspian oil and gas: How far have we come and where are we going?’, in Sally Cummings, ed, Oil, Transition and Security in Central Asia (New York: Routledge/Curzon, 2003).

2. See, for example, Russell Ong, China's Security Interests in the post-Cold War era (London: Curzon Press, 2001).

3. For a realist approach to international relations, see, for example, Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979) and Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1978).

4. For a full account of the Chinese notion of security, see Li Qinggong and Wei Wei, ‘The world needs a new security concept’, Jiefangjun Bao, 24 December 1997, p 5. See also Ong, op cit, Ref 2.

5. Special Issue: ‘The Non-Military Aspects of Strategy’, Survival, Vol 31, No 6 (November/December 1989).

6. See, for example, Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the post-Cold War Era, 2nd edn (Hemel Hempstead, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991); Clive Jones and Caroline Kennedy-Pipes, eds, International Security in a Global Age: Security in the Twenty-First Century (London: Cass, 2000); Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (London, Lynne Rienner, 1998).

7. Li and Wei, op cit, Ref 4.

8. This began with defeat in the First Opium War (1839–1942) by Britain and the ‘humiliation’ lasted until the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949. For a Chinese account, see Hu Sheng, Imperialism and Chinese Politics (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955).

9. Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (Boston: Beacon Press, 1940), p 171.

10. Allen S. Whiting, Sinkiang: Pivot or Pawn? (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958), p 14.

11. The term ‘social imperialist’ was used by the Chinese to categorise the Soviet Union as a socialist country with imperialist ambitions, just like capitalist America. China had to face two hostile superpowers in the 1960s.

12. China actually fought a border war against the Soviet Union along the Ussuri River in 1969. See also John Gittings, Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute: A Commentary and Extracts from the Recent Polemics 1963–1967 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), Donald Zagoria, The Sino–Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962)

13. Hence, China acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CBTB) in 1996, primarily to prevent other new states from acquiring nuclear capability. In fact, China has repeatedly declared its commitment to no first use of nuclear weapons as well as no use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states or in non-nuclear areas.

14. ‘Five-nation border agreement signed in Shanghai’, Xinhua news agency, 26 April 1996, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Asia–Pacific, 27 April 1996, p G/1.

15. China said it would further cut its troops by 500,000 in three years on the basis of a reduction of one million troops in the 1980s. See ‘Roundup comparing security concepts’, China Radio International, 29 December 1997, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Asia–Pacific, 1 January 1998, p G/2. ‘Chinese party paper commentary hails Central Asian border accord,’ Xinhua News Agency, 24 April 1997, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Asia–Pacific, 26 April 1997, p G/1.

16. ‘Defence minister says China's military diplomacy ‘unprecedentedly active’ in 1997,’ Xinhua News Agency, 26 December 1997, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Asia–Pacific, 30 December 1997, p G/112.

17. Li and Wei, op cit, Ref 4.

18. The strategy was first formulated by US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the 1940s, the primary aim to undermine the Soviet bloc of Communist states.

19. For a full account, see Ong, op cit, Ref 2, ch 6.

20. ‘Chinese think-tank on Central Asia, NATO’, Zhongguo Xinwen She News Agency, Beijing, in Chinese, 20 January 1998, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 21 January 1998, p G/2.

21. ‘China cuts Uighur's sentence’, BBC World News, 3 March 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3528535.stm

22. ‘Li Peng addresses national conference on nationalities affairs’, Xinhua News Agency, 20 February 1990, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Asia–Pacific, 23 February 1990, p B2/1.

23. Jonathan N. Lipman, Familiar Strangers: A history of Muslims in the Northwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). He contrasted the Uighurs with the traditional Huis, who have been less vocal and almost non-committal towards any form of nationalism, based on their primordial religious identity. The Huis are ‘familiar strangers’: they are familiar owing to their overall cultural affiliation with mainstream Chinese culture and their alienation is a product of their belief in Islam. For another account of Hui Muslims in China, see Michael Dillon, China's Muslim Hui Community: Migration, Settlement and Sects (Richmond, VA: Curzon, 1999).

24. ‘Li Peng addresses national conference on nationalities affairs’, Xinhua News Agency, 20 February 1990, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Asia–Pacific, 23 February 1990, p B2/1.

25. Dewardic McNeal, ‘China's relations with Central Asian states and problems with terrorism’, in US Department of State, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 17 December 2001, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7945.pdf

26. Abigail Sines, ‘Civilizing the Middle Kingdom's wild west’, Central Asian Survey, Vol 21, No 1, March 2002, pp 5–14.

27. Statement from the Information Office of the State Council, People's Republic of China, ‘East Turkistan's terrorist forces cannot get away with impunity’, 21 January 2002, Beijing.

28. There were reports of Beijing's ties to the Taliban regime, which included providing assistance to build a national telecommunications systems in Afghanistan. Cited in Mohan Malik, ‘China's tactical gains and strategic losses after 11 September’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol 24, No 2, August 2002, pp 257–258.

29. The Shanghai Five originally comprised China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan joined in 2001 and the organisation was renamed SCO.

30. ‘Central Asian countries promise Xinjiang military heads to suppress separatism’, Xinjiang Ribao, 3 November 1997.

31. The difference between Marxist and Realist theories centres on whether class interests or national interests drive state behaviour. See Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Prince University Press, 1987), pp 25–64.

32. Li and Wei, op cit, Ref 4.

33. For instance, entry to the World Trade Organisation should not be used as ‘cards’ to exert pressure on another country and disrupt the country's economic development. See Li and Wei, op cit, Ref 4.

34. ‘Kazakhs agree to China pipeline’, BBC News, 18 May 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3723249.stm

35. China signs Uzbek accords’, BBC News, 15 June 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3806217.stm

36. G. Christoffersen, ‘China's intentions for Russian and Central Asian oil and gas’, National Bureau of Asian Research, NBR Analysis, Vol 9, No 2, March 1998.

37. The China Quarterly, Vol. 178, June 2004, especially Nicolas Becquelin, ‘Staged development in Xinjiang’, pp 358–378.

38. Sines, op cit, Ref 26, p 11.

39. ‘Asia signs up to “new Silk Road”’, BBC News, 26 April 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3660467.stm

40. This was reported in Renmin Ribao, 10 November 2004. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200411/10/eng20041110_163374.html

41. Chinese state owned China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and PetroChina have stakes in the joint venture with Shell, British Petroleum (BP), ExxonMobil and Russia's Gazprom. ‘Trans-China pipeline deal signed 4 July 2002’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2092313.stm

42. Halford Mackinder, ‘The geographical pivot of history’, Geographical Journal, Vol 20, No 4, 1904, p 421. See also G. Robbins, ‘The post-Soviet heartland: reconsidering Mackinder’, Eurasian Studies, Vol 11, No 3, 1994, p 35.

43. See, for example, Vladimir Shlapentokh, ‘Russia, China and the Far East: old geopolitics or a new peaceful co-operation?’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol 28, No 3, 1995, p 314.

44. ‘Chinese think-tank on Central Asia, NATO’, Zhongguo Xinwen She News Agency, Beijing, in Chinese 20 January 1998, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 21 January 1998, p G/2.

45. ‘Chinese think-tank on Central Asia, NATO’, Zhongguo Xinwen She News Agency, Beijing, in Chinese 20 January 1998, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 21 January 1998, p G/2.

46. China had to come to terms with what many regard as a unipolar world after the Cold War ended and the West triumphed. An American-inspired ‘new world order’ was proclaimed by a former president, George Bush Snr, after American ‘victory’ in the Cold War and the Gulf War. See, for example, Pan Tongwen, ‘New world order—according to Mr Bush’, Beijing Review, Vol 34, No 43, 28 October–3 November 1991, p 9.

47. President George Bush: Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capital Washington, DC, 20 September 2001 (available at www.whitehouse.gov).

48. Interestingly, some Russians also share this view. Although Moscow officially supports the US in the ‘war on terror’, there are Russians who regard this war as outright US imperialism or want support greater integration with the West while remaining still sceptical of Vladimir Putin's policies. See John O'Loughlin, Gearoid O Tuathail and Vladimir Kolossov, ‘Russian geopolitical storylines and public opinion in the wake of 9–11: a critical geopolitical analysis and national survey’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol 37, No 3, 2004, pp 281–318.

49. See ‘Caspian pipeline “unites nations”’, BBC News, 16 October 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3749616.stm

50. This was achieved at the fourth SCO Summit Meeting in Tashkent. See Xinhua New Agency, 17 June 2004.

51. The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) wants to build up its military capabilities to cope with new threats such as international terrorism, illegal circulation of narcotics, illegal migration and organised crime. See ‘Head of CIS Collective Security Treaty outlines priorities’, ITAR–TASS News Agency, 20 January 2005 on BBC Monitoring (online).

52. Hu's speech at the fourth SCO Summit Meeting in Tashkent, Xinhua new agency, 17 June 2004.

53. On the ‘China Threat’ thesis, see, for example, Denny Roy, ‘The “China threat” issue: major arguments’, Asian Survey, Vol 36, No 8, 1996, pp 758–771.

54. For the role of great power management in international relations, see Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1977).