Cross-border exchanges

Acknowledgements

Jildiz NICHARAPOVA

American University of Central Asia

We express our praise to all who made this conference their success. The American University of Central Asia offered financial and organisational backing; without this support, this conference would not have proven possible; special thanks go to the AUCA Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Dr Chyngyz SHAMSHIEV, who at every step comforted the organisers in holding fast to the task despite inevitable hurdles and doubts. Generous support, material and moral, was granted by the French Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic and over fifteen universities in Eurasia from which participants were granted leave and travelling grants. Indeed, success is always a collective achievement.

Several AUCA staff deserve special recognition for the rise of the conference, notably Anna KIM, coordinator of the Grant Office for her support; Zulaika UBYSHEVA, assistant in the Research Office for her organisation of the conference from beginning to end. Without her assistance, this conference would not have unfolded smoothly as she helped solve many issues efficiently, thus contributing essentially to its standing. Special thanks to Tamo CHATTOPADHAY, Kanat SULTANALIEV and Rahat SABYRBEKOV for serving as chairs of sessions. With such colleagues, everything is possible.

The American University of Central Asia expresses special thanks to Pierre Chabal (LexFEIM, Le Havre University) for his ideas and pioneer involvement in long bringing together colleagues from numerous Eurasian countries.

The organisers acknowledge His Excellency Michael ROUX, Ambassador of the French Republic in the Kyrgyz Republic, and Madame Catherine POUJOL, director of the French Institute for Research on Central Asia, and all colleagues from various parts of Asia and Europe for coming to the Kyrgyz Republic and participating in the conference.

Foreword

Chingiz SHAMSHIEV, Vice-President

American University of Central Asia

To participants in the conference held at the American University of Central Asia and to chapter-authors of this book, I wish to reiterate that it has been a professional stimulus for the AUCA to co-organise and host the international conference entitled “Cross-border exchanges – Eurasian perspectives on logistics and diplomacy” in June 2018 in Bishkek.

Eurasia, as the largest continent of the planet, had for a long time its western extremity connected by the Great Silk Road to its eastern extremity. This major communication artery played for centuries a tremendous role in transporting goods and people but also ideas, technologies, cultures and policies. Great explorers, Marco Polo and many others, used it for diplomatic purposes. The Road then faded, as it was dominated by maritime communications. Today it is recovering its importance due to the rapid technical progress and economic development of the countries situated in the heart of Eurasia.

Regional integration projects involving countries situated along the historical Great Silk Road are strongly related to modern transport infrastructure schemes, which will substantially increase the circulation of goods, people, capital and information along the new Road. In this context, Eurasian studies rightly focus on the analyses of Eurasian integration and transport infrastructure projects in connection with the cross-border exchanges within the continent.

This book aims to bring together social scientists from a wide range of academic traditions in order to blend in a multidisciplinary discussion of complex integration trends in Eurasia. In particular, attention is paid to the discussion of projects such as the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Belt-and-Road Initiative.

Welcoming address

Michael ROUX

French Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic

Stemming from a conference dedicated to Eurasian perspectives on logistics and diplomacy, this book comes as a timely international publication. Exchanges of goods and services and the required logistics thus feed into the analyses of various security issues, political, economic, social, environmental. Indeed, such an approach is part and parcel of an intellectual trend in Eurasia today.

As was recalled by AUCA Vice-President Ch. SHAMSHIEV, Central Asia was once already at the centre of the world, in the ancient times of the Silk Roads, connecting great civilisations, notably the Mediterranean world and China. Maritime trade thus proved a fundamental upheaval, reducing the importance of this heart of Eurasia, turning great steppes into margins of the Russian empire, then into those of the Soviet Union.

The present conjuncture is one of further upheavals such as globalisation and the digital revolution: no country is closed to or even far from others. The demise of the USSR revived sovereign nations with borders not designed for such a destiny. The shift of the centre of gravity of the world economy towards Asia, notably the Chinese and Indian economies as part of the BRICS challenge the G7. The latter accounted in 1975 for 75 % of global GDP, now only 50 %. Regionalisation has also set in: the western tip of Eurasia has unified into the European Union, bringing unprecedented peace and growth for the last 70 years, now facing the dual challenge of the Brexit hypothesis and of an initiative for Europe.

Between i/ this reinvigorated, value-laden European Union, having recently finalised its new “Strategy for Central Asia” [editors’ note: 2017], ii/ China, once again one of the first world powers, deploying ambitious plans for New silk roads, iii/ Russia, that has regained power and confidence, and iv/ a vast Muslim world, confronted with great challenges of identity and security, Central Asia is once more in the centre of the game.

Introduction

Central Asia as a new crossroad? Developing routes for trade, culture, and politics in the 21st century

Sebastien PEYROUSE

George Washington University

The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the emergence of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as five new independent States in the international arena revised the destiny and political and economic orientations of Central Asia as a region linking Russian, Chinese, South-Asian and Middle-Eastern cultures. Regions of Central Eurasia have been centres of civilisation in short periods of their history, but only in ancient and medieval times. In modern times, they were the peripheries of the Russian, Ottoman, Persian, British, and Chinese empires, sparsely populated compared to large concentrations of people nearby – the Mediterranean Basin, India, and China – without political unity. The region had a role as a transit space for people, goods, and ideas to the north during the successive “Empires of the steppes” that invaded Europe from the Altaic homeland, and to the south during the Silk Road trade epics linking China to the Mediterranean Sea. These east-west movements lost their raison d’être with the great maritime discoveries of the 15th century and changes in the local context, such as Iran’s passing under Safavid domination and the uprising of the Sikhs in Punjab in the 18th century. Russian commercial domination, then the Soviet regime, subsequently almost entirely reoriented trade flows toward the north and made of Central Asia a cul-de-sac of the Soviet Union, shut off to trade with neighbouring southern states. Emerging from a political and economic system that was closed until the end of the 20th century, Central Asia is a “textbook case” for globalisation: it has to adapt a legacy of historic preconditions in a highly competitive world where criteria for success are changing rapidly.

Their degree of integration in the world differs. Turkmenistan, one of the most closed countries after North Korea, kept both political and economic isolation. Kyrgyzstan sought to be the most politically, socially, and economically open country and was the first CIS state to join the WTO in 1998 (Kazakhstan joined only in 2015). Also, although CA is a persistent periphery, poorly connected to the rest of the world based on trade statistics, communication and transport networks, and studies of business environment, the situation is changing.

In the 2000s, cross-border trade was increasingly hampered by protectionist measures, notably imposed by Uzbekistan. The absence of a regional market strongly impeded the economic capabilities of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and weighed on Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in critical areas: food security, energy security and water management.

After 1991, China had few assets in Central Asia following long decades of poor Sino-Soviet relations that impeded direct relations: Central Asia was a space “reserved” for Moscow; Yet, Chinese interests in Central Asia quickly increased. In the first half of the 1990s, Beijing’s concern was to sign demarcation treaties, demilitarise the borders, and prevent the strengthening of Uyghur separatism. In the first half of the 2000s, China moved to establish herself vigorously on the Central Asian market, mainly in hydrocarbons, extractive industries, infrastructures, and communications. In the second half of the 1990s and early 2000s, Beijing aimed to create a platform for discussion and mutual discovery and build a collective security framework through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to secure the sustainability of its economic investments.¹ Finally, since 2005, Beijing has been promoting its language and culture aiming to train Central Asian elites according to the Chinese model. Despite an initially negative image in Central Asia, China has succeeded in improving its reputation with soft-power diplomacy, and drastically changed the economic and strategic given on the Central Asian arena. China is positioned as the second most influential external actor in the region, surpassing Russia in economic terms, but not in strategic or cultural ones.

In the coming decades, China’s trade domination over Central Asia is likely to be confirmed. Beijing has become a key positive element of the transition to the service economy and to that of new technologies. Its proximity has proven a guarantee of development and insertion into world markets. In 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping announced the opening of the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), confirming China’s long-term strategic, security and economic objectives in Central Asia.