China In Eurasia

Welcome back to the China In Eurasia briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China’s resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

I’m RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here’s what I’m following right now.

The collapse of the Soviet Union is still seen as a cautionary tale in Beijing, but it paved the way for China’s three-decade rise as a power across Eurasia.

Not only did it mark a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Beijing and Moscow, the effects of this shift are still being felt today as the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union draws near, as I explained here.

Finding Perspective: The Soviet Union’s dissolution, which officially took place on December 26, 1991, and the creation of 15 new states was a source of fear and anxiety in Beijing.

But the end of tensions with Moscow, which had been simmering since a border conflict between the two countries in 1969, freed up Chinese resources and planning to focus outside its borders -- and away from a potential Soviet threat -- in a way that wasn’t previously possible.

This set China up to become a leading force in Eurasia and elsewhere. Not only was Beijing propelled on a path of steep economic growth that saw decades of improving living standards at home, it was also able to forge new political ties with its neighbors and eventually launch the globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Over the following decades, China slowly expanded its influence westward, with the region increasingly becoming a focus for its policymakers.

The Soviet Union’s end also deeply impacted thinking at the top in Beijing. Avoiding a similar fate has been a fixation for the Chinese Communist Party’s top brass, including Xi Jinping, who called the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution “a profound lesson” that many China watchers say has helped fuel Beijing’s tough crackdowns and desire for control over varying aspects of life -- from curbing the amount of time young people can play video games to recently limiting vasectomies for men.

Why It Matters: As Peter Frankopan, professor of global history at Oxford and author of the book Silk Roads, told me, one of the big takeaways for understanding China’s rise across Eurasia after the collapse of the Soviet Union is how unforeseen such a development was at the time.

“There was a widespread conviction that communism was dead; that socialist states would fail; and that China’s direction of travel was predictable, straightforward, and inevitably one of convergence with the Western world,” Frankopan said.

In this vein, the story of China’s rise across the former Soviet space is just one piece of the puzzle of Beijing’s new influence in Eurasia. Another crucial part is Western complacency and policy missteps.

“[There was] a profound lack of thought around what China’s rise meant, either in its own terms, in Eurasia, or even globally,” Frankopan told me. “We are paying the price for that today.”

Read More

● The Chinese Communist Party wants the world to see China’s continued rise as inevitable, but it is anything but, write Eric Zhu and Tom Orlik for Bloomberg.

● For a deeper look at what China learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union (and China’s impact on Moscow), read this excerpt from Chris Miller’s book The Struggle To Save The Soviet Economy.

● China’s admission to the WTO was a largely unnoticed event of epic geopolitical and economic importance. The BBC’s Faisal Islam takes a look at the decision’s legacy 20 years later.

Expert Corner: How Will The EU Handle Olympic Boycotts?

Readers asked: “The United States has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. Will the European Union follow suit?”

To find out more, I asked Finbarr Bermingham, the Europe correspondent for the South China Morning Post, who is based in Brussels:

“I think the EU is unlikely to follow the U.S.-led boycott. Like most issues related to China, it's proven impossible to get member states to discuss it, let alone come to a common position.

“I was surprised late last week when four separate member states and senior EU officials briefed that a boycott would be discussed at this week's Foreign Affairs Council. For months, Brussels had been brushing off my questions about it, saying sports was a ‘member state competency.’

“In the end, it wasn't discussed. ‘We ran out of time,’ one diplomat told me. ‘It was not on the agenda,’ said a prickly Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, when I asked him about it, even though that morning he'd told us to ask him about it later.

“Brussels says it hasn't decided whether to send commissioners, the French tell me ‘there's still time’ to debate, but I sense reluctance to follow Washington on this one.

“Lithuania and Belgium have already said they won't send officials and the Dutch are mulling it, but don't expect an EU-led blanket move."

Do you have a question about China’s growing footprint in Eurasia? Send it to me at StandishR@rferl.org or reply directly to this e-mail and I’ll get it answered by leading experts and policymakers.

Three More Stories From Eurasia

1. Can There Be Justice For Xinjiang?

An unofficial London-based tribunal investigating China’s oppression of the Uyghur people charged Xi Jinping and high-ranking members of his government with genocide, crimes against humanity, and systematic torture against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, RFE/RL reported.

What’s Next?: The Uyghur Tribunal comprises lawyers, academics, and businesspeople, but it has no government backing or powers to sanction or punish Beijing.

Its organizers, however, hope the process of publicly laying out evidence will compel international action to tackle alleged abuses in China’s western province and can act as an important symbol.

The tribunal is part of a raft of recent measures attempting to hold China accountable for alleged atrocities in Xinjiang, which the Chinese government denies.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 428-to-1 to ban imports from Xinjiang over concerns about forced labor, and the United Nations' human rights office is finalizing its report on alleged abuses against Uyghurs and other groups.

Tajikistan is also the subject of a recent filing by Uyghur groups to the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging that the Central Asian government has allowed Chinese officials to operate on its territory in order to deport Uyghurs back to China and to coerce them into becoming informants.

Elsewhere, Argentina is set to hear a court case against Beijing for its actions in Xinjiang in early February.

China is not part of the ICC, and the legal effort targeting Tajikistan, which is a member, is meant to implicate Beijing and take Chinese officials to court.

While the slate of moves point to growing international momentum over the issue, there is still no clear or likely path for how to punish Beijing and hold officials involved legally accountable.

2. Disinformation Nations

China and Russia have pushed widespread disinformation and propaganda campaigns about the origins of COVID-19 and the efficacy of vaccines aimed at winning over foreign audiences and sowing distrust toward Western governments.

The Details: A new study from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) analyzed both countries’ tactics and found that while China and Russia have played a central role in spreading COVID-related disinformation and propaganda, they have followed largely separate strategies. (You can read our report here.)

While both countries have mobilized their own campaigns, they differ in interesting -- and revealing -- ways.

Chinese efforts have tried to convince the world that it should not be blamed for the pandemic and that China is the most effective global partner in combating the virus, while Russian disinformation networks have largely sought to undermine faith in Western efforts to fight COVID-19 and exacerbate tensions.

“China is trying to send out a message of self-confidence and push a consistent message about the [Communist Party’s] abilities,” Edward Lucas, one of the study’s authors told me. “Whereas the Russian campaigns are more focused on creating chaos, regardless of whether it contradicts the Kremlin’s official version.”

3. In The Shadow Of CPEC

Mass protests in Gwadar, one of the main hubs for Chinese investment into Pakistan, continue to grow and pose a risk for Beijing’s plans in the country through the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Radio Mashaal, RFE/RL’s Pakistani service, reports.

What You Need To Know: Sporadic demonstrations have been going on for months, with protesters demanding clean drinking water, uninterrupted access to the sea for fishing, and a ban on deep-sea trawling.

But the movement gained new momentum on December 10 as hundreds of thousands took to the streets after calls from Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman, a local politician who has taken up the cause and campaigned strongly against illegal trawlers fishing off Gwadar’s waters.

While China is not the main focus of the protests (although Chinese trawlers have often been accused of illegal fishing), they highlight how CPEC, which is the flagship project of Beijing’s BRI, has become embroiled in local grievances against the Pakistani state.

The large crowds could derail Chinese-funded projects in Gwadar, which is home to a strategic port, and both Islamabad and the Chinese authorities are watching closely.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imrhan Khan said after the December 10 protests that he would take action against illegal fishing, and Chinese state-run media have been targeting any coverage that looks to link China to the wave of discontent.

Across The Supercontinent

Buyer's Remorse: Montenegrin Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic visited the site of the country’s $1 billion Chinese-funded and -built Bar-Boljare highway and said the government is dissatisfied with the pace and quality of the construction, RFE/RL’s Balkan Service reported.

Not Forgotten: Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka signed a new directive with China on December 3 to deepen relations that called for a greater focus on military and BRI investments.

Mining Dreams: Officials from the Taliban government in Afghanistan said they want to restart work on the Mes Aynak copper-mining project that China has the rights to.

While the Taliban wants to finalize a deal with Beijing, the project has been at a standstill for years, and China is hesitant about investing too much into the mine.

Catch And Release: A Uyghur man detained at Belgrade's airport whose whereabouts were unknown for several days has been released and returned to Turkey after an outcry from human rights groups, my colleagues at RFE/RL’s Balkan Service reported.

He Said, Xi Said: Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a video call on December 15 to “enhance mutual trust and lend stability and positive energy to the international situation,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Sharp Power: The National Endowment for Democracy launched the Sharp Power Research Portal, a tool meant to track and catalogue research and reporting on five authoritarian countries -- China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and their activities across 134 countries. Check it out here.

One Thing To Watch

Germany’s new coalition government has promised to pursue a values-based foreign policy focused on democracy and human rights and to be tougher on China and Russia than Angela Merkel’s successive governments.

But when it comes to China, Olaf Scholz, who was sworn in as chancellor on December 8, has already walked a muddled line. He offered a vague, noncommittal response when asked if Germany would follow the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics and also reportedly signaled to Beijing before becoming chancellor that Berlin would continue to follow Merkel’s pragmatic, business-first line on China.

It will no doubt be a tightrope for Scholz, who has to balance German industry’s calls for a more friendly China policy with the views of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who is much more hawkish.

That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.

Until next time,

Reid Standish

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For three days in May 1989, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing amid great fanfare.

It was the first visit by a Soviet leader to China since a border conflict in 1969 that sparked decades-long tensions between the two countries, and it would be the last.

Over the next two and a half years following Gorbachev’s landmark visit to China, Beijing’s and Moscow’s paths diverged.

The Soviet Union saw its status as a world power diminished as its leadership grappled with rising nationalism as well as economic stagnation and collapse that culminated in the country’s official dissolution on December 26, 1991.

In contrast, China was propelled on a path of steep economic growth that saw decades of growing living standards at home and expanding influence abroad leading to its current status as a global force.

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the legacy of that monumental shift is still being felt across Eurasia as it paved the way for China’s three-decade rise to influence throughout the supercontinent.

The Soviet Union’s dissolution and the creation of 15 new states was met with caution in Beijing, but the end of tensions with Moscow freed up Chinese resources and planning to focus outside its borders in a way that wasn’t previously possible.

This set China up to become a leading force in Central Asia, forge newfound political ties with Moscow, and eventually launch the globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which opened the door for Chinese companies and reoriented much of the economic gravity of Eurasia.

SEE ALSO:

Marking Communist Centenary, China Heralds Its Rising Influence

“With the security threat posed by the Soviet Union gone, China was free to invest those resources elsewhere and eventually expand its influence to its West,” Haiyun Ma, an associate professor at Frostburg State University in Maryland, told RFE/RL. “This is a major achievement for Beijing. Chinese influence is basically everywhere today.”

The Soviet Union’s end also deeply impacted thinking at the top in Beijing. Avoiding a similar fate as its communist peer has been a fixation for Chinese policymakers and current leader, Xi Jinping, who called the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution “a profound lesson” in a 2013 speech.

'A Cautionary Tale'

Those lessons learned, according to Xi’s speech, are that Soviet leaders bent too far on their resolve and ideology, a point of view that many analysts say has fueled a crackdown on dissent at home and a desire to expand Chinese power globally.

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“For the Chinese Communist Party, the collapse of the Soviet Union is a cautionary tale,” Nadege Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research, told RFE/RL. “There is a lot of anxiety behind Chinese policy. It’s a fear about losing power and a desire to maintain it at all costs.”

Initially, Chinese moves across Eurasia were not ambitious or high-level. Beijing was grappling with how to view its new neighbors, which were navigating economic hardships and a wave of political crises -- from a civil war in Tajikistan to fighting in Russia's North Caucasus.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, whose actions had helped fuel a rapprochement between Beijing and Washington during the 1970s, also prompted fears that China could be next as the United States and its allies reveled in the end of the Cold War and efforts to roll back communism.

With instability and uncertainty high in the states of the former Soviet Union, Beijing moved cautiously in the 1990s. China focused on its economic development at home and launched a major diplomatic campaign to improve ties with its East Asian neighbors and attract investment into the country.

While in Central Asia, China began to play an intricate role in the country’s post-Soviet shuttle trade as Beijing also looked to shore up its security fears and settle long-standing border disputes.

But Chinese involvement grew slowly in the region, in large part due to Beijing’s worries over how an insecure post-Soviet Russia would react.

SEE ALSO:

Central Asian Land And China

In April 1996, the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan met in Shanghai to sign an agreement to pull back military forces from the former Chinese-Soviet border and provide a mechanism to settle border issues with its newly independent neighbors.

The agreement resulted in the formation of the Shanghai Five, which would go on to become the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001 with the addition of Uzbekistan (and has since welcomed India and Pakistan as members).

“China never wanted to challenge Russian openly. That’s why Beijing penetrated the region economically first and then grew its influence elsewhere,” said Ma.

Over the following years, China cemented a broad strategy focused on not interfering in other countries’ affairs, building up economic cooperation, and boosting its reputation across the region.

As China’s rise throughout the 21st century began to shift its perception in Washington as a future competitor, Beijing put an even stronger emphasis on deepening ties across Eurasia, especially as an American military presence and a constellation of U.S. allies in East Asia put limits on Chinese strategy.

“The rise of China alerted it to the United States and others,” said Ma. “Expanding overland to the West was a much safer way than in the Pacific region where tensions could rise quickly.”

Marching West

Throughout the 2000s, Chinese strategists focused their attention toward Eurasia, which became a hub for new policies from an increasingly confident Beijing.

But as Daniel Markey, the author of China’s Western Horizon notes, it wasn’t immediately clear at the time that Beijing would rise to its current status across the former Soviet Union.

READ MORE: Special Section On The Fall Of The U.S.S.R.

“It wasn’t evident that China would be the one to benefit from the dissolution of the Soviet Union or would be in a position to extend its influence into Eurasia,” Markey told RFE/RL.

Beijing’s focus centered mostly on Central Asia, which Chinese policymakers began to see more and more as a strategic area vital to its own security located along Afghanistan and China’s western Xinjiang Province. The region is also rich in natural resources, which as the world’s largest consumer of oil and gas, China needed to fuel its domestic growth.

In 2010, Liu Yazhou, a general in the People’s Liberation Army, famously referred to Central Asia as a “rich piece of cake given to today’s Chinese people by heaven” that he said was a strategic soft spot for Beijing where Western pressure would have “a more far-reaching influence” than in the Pacific.

Around the same time, a series of shifts continued to alter Beijing’s position in the world.

China managed to weather the 2008 global financial crisis better than most countries, but emerged from it facing overcapacity issues for many of its industries and needed access to new markets. Moreover, as China overtook Japan in 2010 as the world’s second-largest economy, many countries across Eurasia were eager to attract investment and had limited access from the West or Russia.

“China wasn’t always seen as an attractive investor,” said Markey. “It wasn’t until the financial crisis that many countries really opened up more to China, in part due to desperation and a need for investment.”

In 2012, Wang Jisi, an influential scholar and former dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, outlined a strategy for a massive economic and diplomatic push westwards to build influence in Eurasia. Dubbed “March West,” the strategy was a response to American rebalancing toward East Asia and many of its ideas formed the foundation for the BRI, Xi’s flagship foreign policy project that was unveiled in Kazakhstan in 2013.

The global BRI has since launched projects across Latin America, Africa, and Eurasia worth hundreds of billions of dollars and allowed Beijing to expand its influence and create new opportunities for its companies as it invests in strategic locations like Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, rail links across Central Asia, and Iran’s vast but troubled oil sector.

“In the minds of many Chinese policymakers, China has revived its historic and traditional role across Central Asia and other parts of Eurasia,” said Frostburg State University’s Ma. “In 30 years, it has changed from being an area of mostly Russian influence.”

The New Eurasia

While Gorbachev’s visit to China in 1989 wasn’t the game changer that some Soviet policymakers were hoping for, that vision for stronger Beijing-Moscow ties has been realized under Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has watched China’s rise with apprehension and Moscow also has its own plans for the region under the Eurasian Union. Despite that, the two sides have still managed to form a closer relationship in recent years, with Putin remarking that ties were at their highest-level ever in July.

“The demise of the Soviet Union opened the door for more friendly relations with Russia,” said the National Bureau of Asian Research’s Rolland. “It’s kind of mesmerizing to observe how rapidly things changed.”

While Beijing and Moscow do not see eye to eye on many issues, they have avoided letting frictions bubble over and largely been driven together by a shared animosity toward the United States. Both China and Russia have shown an increased willingness to tackle international issues together and have begun to conduct military exercises together.

SEE ALSO:

China, Russia Showcase Growing Ties With Joint Military Exercises

Many analysts are cautious, however, about how sustainable that dynamic will be, especially as Beijing continues to expand its security presence across Central Asia and grow its economic influence across a part of the world that the Kremlin views as within its “sphere of influence.”

“Beijing plays the long game and has so far been very smart in alleviating Moscow’s anxieties,” Rolland said. “But they can read the writing on the wall and ultimately see Russia as a declining power.”