CHINA IN CENTRAL ASIA

CHINA, RUSSIA MULL INTERESTS IN CENTRAL ASIA

Raw materials and energy reserves in Central Asia make the region of particular interest to both China and Russia. The two countries share interests in region but are also each others biggest competitors.

Deutsche Welle, March 23, 2013

The relationship between Russia and China is complicated by both cooperation and competition. That could make the first official visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow a tense one. Bilateral political and economic issues are set to dominate the agenda when Xi meets Russian Putin Vladimir Putin for two days of talks, which started Friday.

The countries enjoy what experts have often called a strategic partnership, but that does not mean relations are without problems. The energy sector often crops up as a bone of contention between the nations as both look to increase their power and influence in Central Asia.

Competition for raw materials and trade lanes

Russia and China have never been able to find common ground when it comes to Central Asia - and are unlikely to do so in the future, according to Günter Knabe, a German expert on the issue.

"They have a number of common interests that are temporary and limited," he said. "But there are many more issues on which they are competitors - if not even enemies."

China is currently driven by one main interest: expanding its own economy. That's one of the goals the leaders of China's Communist Party set themselves.

"China needs raw materials and energy and it is trying to get them wherever it can using whatever means it can," Knabe said, adding that Central Asia looks like a treasure chest of raw materials and energy reserves to leaders in Beijing.

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INDIA-AFGHANISTAN

POLITICS JOURNAL: INDIA’S AGREEMENT WITH AFGHANISTAN

Jyoti Malhotra

IndiaRealTime, October 5, 2011

India and Afghanistan signed a strategic partnership in Delhi Tuesday, just a few days after Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office accused a Pakistani citizen of carrying out a suicide attack against former president and peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani last month.

The partnership, which was signed after Mr. Karzai met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, involves India training Afghan security forces. This takes ties between Delhi and Kabul to a new level, beyond the economic reconstruction that India has been very careful to focus on in the last decade since the Americans returned to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. It is the first such agreement Afghanistan has with any country, including the U.S.

“The people of Afghanistan have suffered enough. They deserve to live in peace and decide their future themselves, without outside interference, coercion and intimidation,” Mr. Singh told the media Tuesday evening.

Mr. Karzai said he hoped South Asia would, one day, be able to live in peace where “radicalism is not used as an instrument of state policy.”

The partnership agreement specifically calls for India “to assist, as mutually determined, in the training, equipping and capacity-building programmes for Afghan national security forces,” representing a significant scaling up of India’s intention to enhance its presence in Afghanistan.

(...) [artículo aquí]

CHINA GOES TO THE WEST

CHINA EXPANDS ENERGY TIES IN CENTRAL ASIA

Robert M Cutler

Asia Times, September 29, 2011

MONTREAL - China has been implementing deeper and deeper energy cooperation with Central Asia, for over a decade, beginning with Beijing's acquisition of energy infrastructure in western Kazakhstan not far from the Caspian Sea, which they operated for years at a loss in order to have and maintain a foothold there.

The strategy first bore fruit with the 1998 signature on the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline. The pipeline is now operating despite the fact that four years were required before construction began on its first phase, due to Kazakhstani discomfort over the prospect that Chinese workers sent to build it might not go home after the job was done.

The pipeline has been extended gradually westward across Kazakhstan and will probably reach Chinese-owned infrastructure Beijing, Obama met the Dalai Lama. In May and July, People's Liberation Army (PLA) chief of the General Staff General Chen Bingde and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen exchanged visits. In August, Joe Biden made his first visit to China as vice president.

South China Sea is high on the agenda
The South China Sea featured prominently in US-Chinese interactions in this four-month period. Tensions flared in May and June in a spate of incidents that involved Chinese intimidation and harassment of other claimants. Chinese forces shot at Filipino fisherman, deployed navy patrol boats to chase off an oil exploration vessel, and unloaded building materials and erected posts on an uninhabited reef 230 km from the Philippines' southwestern Palawan province.

(...) [artículo aquí]

CHINA AND NATURAL GAS

CHINA, KAZAKHSTAN SIGN AGREEMENT TO EXPAND NATURAL-GAS PIPELINE NETWORK

Bloomberg News

Bloomberg, September 8, 2011

China, the world’s biggest energy user, signed an accord with Kazakhstan to expand the capacity of a pipeline network delivering natural gas from Central Asia by more than 80 percent.

The two governments agreed to build the Kazakh section of Pipeline “C” that will originate from Turkmenistan and cut through Uzbekistan, China National Petroleum Corp., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, said in its online newsletter today. The link will flank two existing pipelines running through the three Central Asian nations.

China is turning to Central Asia for gas supplies to diversify fuel sources and to help cut the nation’s reliance on coal and oil. Turkmenistan started deliveries in December 2009 and is the only country transporting gas to China by pipeline.

The capacity of Pipeline “C” will rise to 25 billion cubic meters a year by December 2015, boosting the network’s capacity to 55 billion cubic meters, CNPC said.

(...) [artículo aquí]

US AND CENTRAL ASIA

RECALIBRATING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE U.S. AND CENTRAL ASIA

Daniel Wagner and Luca Costa

Foreign Policy Journal, May 27, 2011

The deterioration of bilateral relations between Pakistan and the U.S. represents at once potential peril for the region and an opportunity for the U.S. and the Central Asian states. Although the U.S./Pakistan bilateral relationship has been in decline for some time—the result of a combination of conflicting military objectives, a lack of trust, and perceived Pakistani corruption—the dramatic recent disintegration opens the door for a rebalancing of relationships between the U.S. and some of the regional states. The ability of the U.S. to influence the future course of events will in turn be influenced by the role China and Russia in the evolving landscape.

(...) [artículo aquí]