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China’s Infiltration Tactics in Central Asia

CUS’s 106-page report analyses China’s encroachment in Central Asia via Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Belt and Road Initiative….reports Asian Lite News

The Centre for Uyghur Studies (CUS), an institute that combines academic research and human rights advocacy and is focused on Uyghur-related studies and activities, released a report on Thursday highlighting the effects and tactics employed by China to infiltrate Central Asia.

According to a press statement released by CUS, the 106-page report analyses the strong role of two major entities belonging to China, namely the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which serve as the cornerstones for China’s increasing encroachment into the region.

The statement further states the factors influencing the use of East Turkistan as a corridor and its geopolitical implications. Furthermore, the report also extends to China’s burgeoning presence in Central Asian countries through large-scale infrastructure projects, enhanced bilateral trade, and collaborative security measures. An important aspect of this study is the investigation of China’s soft power strategies in shaping regional dynamics.

Highlighting this, the report stated that “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has provided China with a legal status and a stable mechanism for active military activity in the region, and the newly established China-Central Asia Summit has further enhanced China`s political position in the region. The role of Central Asia is vital in the < The report also emphasizes the multifaceted consequences of these deepening bilateral relations, and how economic engagements, particularly in infrastructure and trade, have led some Central Asian countries into a potential debt trap, fostering a perilous dependence on China. The report also stresses the position of the democratic countries, surrounding China over the genocide of ethnic minorities like Uyghur and Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan, as China currently has political and economic leverage on them.

The report also sheds light on the alarming human rights abuses linked to these relationships, raising critical questions about the ethical implications of such partnerships and CCP’s exporting corruption through BRI. Additionally, China’s support and bolstering of authoritarian regimes in the region are critically examined, probing the impact on regional governance and political stability.

Additionally, the report even delves into unraveling the complex web of economic, diplomatic, and security ties, and their profound implications for the region’s future and its place in global geopolitics. While highlighting the genocide inflicted by China on the Uyghur community, it stated that “the Chinese Communist Party has accused those who recognize the Uyghur Genocide in East Turkistan or states that speak out about the Uyghur Genocide of interfering in their internal affairs. It explains this argument with the principle of noninterference in internal affairs. However, these analyses to date have revealed that China`s principle of non-interference in internal affairs actually means supporting authoritarian regimes all over the world, especially in Central Asian countries. This perspective, which ignores universal international rules, also applies to the relations between China and Central Asia”.

Conclusively, the report reveals a multifaceted and deeply impactful narrative of China`s infiltration into Central Asia. Through a combination of diplomatic initiatives, economic investments, and security alliances, China has successfully expanded its influence in this strategically important region.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Belt and Road Initiative have emerged as critical instruments in this expansion, facilitating infrastructure development, trade, and regional cooperation. However, this growing influence has not been without its challenges and controversies.

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Over 80% of Taiwanese Support Status Quo with China

More than 80 per cent of Taiwanese people want to maintain the status quo with China, with those preferring to keep Taiwan’s current status indefinitely rising sharply, while those who want independence have been dropping since 2020, according to the results of a survey released on Friday, Central News Agency Taiwan reported.

In the survey titled “Changes in the Unification-Independence Stances of Taiwanese,” National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, which has tracked the annual change in Taiwanese residents’ stance on the issue from 1994-2023, said it saw increasing support for the continuation of cross-strait status quo.

The three most preferred choices in 2023 were: “maintain the status quo indefinitely” (33.2 per cent), “maintain the status quo, decide at a later date” (27.9 per cent) and “maintain the status quo, move toward independence” (21.5 per cent), according to the Center.

Added together, those three categories of people who either want to maintain the status quo for now or indefinitely accounted for 82.6 per cent of the total, Central News Agency Taiwan reported.

The least preferred option was “unification as soon as possible,” which had never exceeded 5 per cent since the survey has been conducted and stood at only 1.2 per cent in 2023, according to the findings.

That category of people who want to “maintain the status quo, move toward unification,” has dropped from the third highest percentage overall, or 15.6 per cent, in 1994, to 6.2 per cent in 2023.

Also, in 2023, only 3.8 per cent of respondents expressed a desire for Taiwan’s immediate independence, making it the second least preferred option overall, with support over the decades never exceeding 7.8 per cent.

Central News Agency Taiwan reported that the percentage of people who want independence now and those who want it later have been steadily dropping since 2020. The two groups added together fell from a high of 32.1 per cent in 2020 to 25.3 per cent last year.

The fastest growing category of people were those who want to maintain the status quo indefinitely; it rose from 9.8 per cent in 1994 to 33.2 per cent last year, rising sharply since 2020.

It surpassed those who favored “maintain status quo, decide at later date” for the first time in 2022.

This survey was released in tandem with another one that tracked the year-on-year changes in how Taiwanese people identify themselves (as Taiwanese or Chinese) between 1992 and 2023.

That second survey showed that 61.7 per cent of Taiwanese in 2023 identified themselves as Taiwanese, falling a little from the record high of 64.3 per cent seen in 2020. That self-identification preference has ballooned from 17.6 per cent in 1992 to more than threefold last year, Central News Agency Taiwan reported.

Last year, around one third of respondents considered themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese, continuing a general downward trend from 46.4 per cent in 1992 to 32 per cent in 2023. But last year those who considered themselves to be Taiwanese and Chinese rose slightly from the record low of 29.9 per cent in 2020.

In contrast, significantly fewer people consider themselves to be simply Chinese, with the number falling from 25.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent over the past 30 years.

Only 3.9 per cent of respondents showed no response in 2023, down from 10.5 per cent in 1992.

According to the center, the surveys were conducted via telephone questionaires with respondents ranging from 1,209 to 34,854 per year.

The center said it used key sample variables to weight the sample’s partial characters such as sex, age, and education through an iterated (or raking) process to ensure the sample structure is representative of the population.

It did not provide the confidence level and margin of error. (ANI)

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India eyes new avenues with GCC-Central Asia partnership

The Kingdom’s hosting of the GCC-Central Asia Summit reflects keenness to boost the relations…reports Aditi Bhaduri

July 19th saw yet another summit in the format of C5+ in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The summit took place between the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates), and the five Central Asian Republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

In an article, the Saudi Press Agency said that “The GCC countries and the Central Asian countries (C5) — Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – all Muslim countries members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), have shared values and historical ties, and possess significant oil and gas resources that qualify them to play an influential role in the global energy security field. The Kingdom’s hosting of the GCC-Central Asia Summit reflects keenness to boost these relations, in conjunction with the GCC 18th consultative meeting and reflects the interest of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, in developing relations between the GCC and C5 and increasing coordination between them on issues of common interest…”.

This is the first summit of its kind. Though the GCC countries and the CARs established diplomatic relations soon after the emergence of the later as sovereign states from the ashes of the erstwhile USSR, it was only in 2021 that the first high level meeting was held between the GCC secretary-general and the ministers of foreign affairs of C5 countries in the Kazakh capital, Astana. This paved the way for the First Ministerial Meeting of the GCC-Central Asia Strategic Dialogue was held in Riyadh on September 07, 2022, chaired by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah. It testified to the increasing significance and strategic importance that the GCC began to attach to the Central Asian region.

The Saudi statement notes that, “The summit is the first of its kind; it reflects the keenness of the GCC countries, mainly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to establish partnerships with the international
community in order to enhance the global status of the GCC”.

The summit ended with a joint statement where the “…leaders of the two blocs stressed the importance of strengthening political and strategic relations at the collective and bilateral levers, and continuing coordination in order to achieve regional and international security and stability, confront challenges and work to ensure flexibility…” in a wide range of sectors. However, apart from trade and investments, high on the agenda was security and infrastructure projects in the CARs.

The CARs have existed as independent sovereign states for past 32 years but it is recently acquiring such significance for the international community. In May this year China held its first in person summit with the CARs in the Silk Road City of Xian. A month later in June the European Union had its own outreach with the heads of state of the five CARs. Now it is the turn of the GCC.

With Russia, in whose traditional sphere of influence the CARs are located distracted with Ukraine, and China, the mammoth neighbor making deep forays into it, it is not surprising that the GCC too want to deepen its ties and engagement with the region measuring 4,003,451 sw km in territory and possessing a population of 75 million.

It is a new market, and the region is sitting on piles of natural resources. For Saudi Arabia in particular, the gradual loosening of its ties with the USA is a major driver for the country to form regional and trans-regional partnerships even as it looks to play a bigger role in regional politics and economy. Burying the hatchet with Qatar, concluding a truce with Iran, and mending fences with Turkey are part of this larger strategy that the kingdom is pursuing. Ensuring supply-chains post-Covid, and shoring up investments and economic development is critical to its Vision 2030.

For the CARs too, sandwiched between Russia and China, and not wanting to depend entirely on one or the other, other partnerships are welcomed, in keeping with their “multi-vectoral” policy. The Ukraine war has sparked major challenges for the CARs for their security, economy, and demography. The sanctioning of Central Asian entities by the US and dwindling foreign remittances from Russia are compounding these challenges.  The GCC offers a valuable partnership, representing a major source of greatly needed investments and a major market.

Kazakhstan, the largest and economically the strongest state in Central Asia, for instance, already promised at the summit a list of 100 items that it could export to the GCC.

What can this mean for India?

India has identified CARs as a strategically important region, a bit belatedly, given the edge it had with its soft power and people to people ties in the region since centuries, enhanced during the Soviet period. Momentum was imparted in 2015 when Prime Minister Modi visited all the CARs.

Since then engagement has increased manifold, with India convening the first India-Central Asia summit in 2022, albeit in a virtual format. However, there are still gaps, whether in bilateral meetings between heads of governments or in investments and trade. All of this is capped by the biggest impediment to India’s ties with the region: connectivity. Meanwhile, countries like China and Turkey are quickly expanding their economic, security, and cultural ties with Central Asia.

On the other hand India’s ties with the GCC have exponentially increased under the Modi government. A good example is Modi’s latest UAE visit, where he concluded landmark agreements with the UAE for development of the Local Currency Settlement System and integrate the two countries’ instant payment systems. Increasingly, India is becoming a part of the Middle East, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia its main strategic partners in the bloc, but also while deepening engagements with the other members – Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.

It may, therefore, be worthwhile for India to explore ways of partnering with the GCC in Central Asia. India lacks China’s deep pockets – in Xian in May China pledged $3.6 billion in new development
aid for the CARs and is currently implementing projects worth a total of $136 billion in the region. At the same time while India may incentivize, it cannot force the Indian private sector to engage there. It can, however, explore possibilities of joint projects with GCC partners in Central Asia. For instance, something along the lines of India-Middle East Food Corridor can be thought of. The challenges of connectivity and tyranny of geography can be overcome by setting up manufacturing plants in different sectors, including in defence, in the CARs with GCC investment and Indian technology and know-how.

This would be useful to generate both local employment which will be much needed as a reverse migration of Central Asian labour from Russia is foreseen due to the Ukraine war, and make Central Asia a manufacturing hub while simultaneously widening the Indian footprint there.

Security being another important field of cooperation between the GCC and CARs is another area where a collaboration with India can be cemented as this is a field where India closely collaborates with the GCC and also partners with the CARs, since the chaos in Afghanistan constitutes a direct threat to both India and the CARs. A partnership with the GCC may even incentivize security and open up connectivity opportunities through the badlands of Af-Pak. Finally, the GCC is a bloc friendly to Russia and this too will be important as India seeks to play a bigger role in the region.

(India Narrative)

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