{"id":7823,"date":"2018-02-27T22:22:45","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T21:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.islamicworld.it\/wp\/?p=7823"},"modified":"2020-09-23T20:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T18:02:04","slug":"china-winks-at-central-asia-amongst-complicity-uncertainty-rebuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.islamicworld.it\/wp\/china-winks-at-central-asia-amongst-complicity-uncertainty-rebuff\/","title":{"rendered":"CHINA \u201cWINKS\u201d AT CENTRAL ASIA AMONGST COMPLICITY, UNCERTAINTY AND REBUFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beijing public diplomacy towards the antagonism of the great powers, people\u2019s distrust and political elites appeasement<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Glauco D\u2019Agostino<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Uzbekistan: Xiva \/ Khiva (Khorezm), Pahlavon Mahmud Str., Khan Muhammad Amin’s Madrasa and “Kalta” Minaret (author’s photo)<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Abstract<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The People\u2019s Republic of China opens up to Central Asia and launches its public diplomacy based on its economic potential and a soft power with a friendly face. The Belt and Road Initiative represents today a pillar of Chinese foreign policy, judged successful by many analysts. Beijing would like to develop a Free Trade Area with Central Asia, but Moscow opposes it, fearing Chinese geo-economic dominance. Experts and local academic circles emphasise that the public opinion perceives Chinese influence in a dual way: positively from a geopolitical point of view, to be a bulwark against a growing Western suggestion and the Russian influence; negatively from an identity point of view. In all this, the Western countries, aware of their economic and political weakness in this area, try entering their culture and values, getting in return a precarious consensus from the civil society.<\/span><\/p>\n

China faces significant problems in Central Asia, with an Islamic structure of large part of the society, the influence of a pan-Turkic archetype, a Russophile orientation of political components, a strong nationalistic flattery and the expansion of a Western behaviour pattern. The geo-political issue of the influence on the Central Asian countries, not only by the great powers but also by some significant regional players, stays in the background. China is arising as an element of mediation among political pressures coming from Pakistan, India, Turkey and Iran, without underestimating the unsolved Afghan question under US aegis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/u><\/strong> China, Central Asia, public diplomacy, neighbourhood diplomacy, Silk Road Economic Belt, X\u012bnji\u0101ng.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The pillars of Chinese foreign policy<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Communist Party of China 19th<\/sup> National Congress of October 18th<\/sup>-24th<\/sup>, 2017 included Xi Jinping\u2019s thinking on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the Party Statute. In his first day report, President Xi claimed responsibility for the launch of the \u201cBelt and Road Initiative, of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,[1]<\/a> of the Silk Road Fund[2]<\/a>\u201d and the organisation of the \u201cFirst Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.\u201d He added: \u201cWe should pursue the Belt and Road Initiative as a priority,\u201d[3]<\/a> and he stressed China entered a development policy with open doors.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), revealed in 2013 and comprising the terrestrial lines of the \u201cSilk Road Economic Belt\u201d (SREB) and the \u201c21st<\/sup>-Century Maritime Silk Road\u201d, represents today a pillar of Chinese foreign policy, judged successful by many analysts.\u00a0Here the focus is on the SREB,[5]<\/a> as the main tool of influence (while lacking itself an institutional structure) Beijing would like to exercise on Central Asia, with the geo-political implications investing primarily its closest area in territorial terms (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan border China through its X\u012bnji\u0101ng Uyghur Autonomous Region). It\u2019s no coincidence the SREB, which was proposed first in 1994 in Kazakhstan by L\u012d P\u00e9ng, Chinese President at the time, has been announced in September 2013 during a Xi Jinping\u2019s visit to Astana, once again in Kazakhstan, where he had stressed that China has no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Central Asian nations.[6]<\/sup><\/a> In fact, the main strategy embodying its non-interference policy is that, contrary to the behaviour of the so-called \u201cWestern\u201d states, Beijing does not subordinate investments to any political reforms,[7]<\/a> while the Central Asian governments reap a positive economic effect of it without risking the political system stability. Up to March 2017, China had invested US$50 billion and signed contracts for 305 billion for projects along the BRI, and in 2017 the \u201cBelt and Road Forum for International Cooperation\u201d announced project funding for a further 80 billion.<\/p>\n

\"Silk<\/p>\n

\"Graph<\/p>\n

Therefore, the People\u2019s Republic of China opens up to Central Asia and launches its public diplomacy based on its economic potential and a soft power with a friendly face, a \u201cneighbourhood diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other strategies Beijing has chosen to pursue are the following:<\/p>\n