China opens a new era in its relations with Central Asia

First modification: 05/19/2023 – 11:35

With our special envoy to Xi’an, Stéphane Lagarde

It’s a kind of G6: six flags on stage, six leaders meeting bilaterally since Thursday before meeting together at the Xi’an exhibition center.

Gray suits, white masks of the delegations in front, cameras behind, after a very long wait, raise a red envelope containing a memorandum of this “C + C5”, as the Chinese diplomats say (China + the five countries of Central Asia). It is a format that is destined to last, since in the ten minutes of his speech, the Chinese president made an appointment to meet in Kazakhstan in two years. The signal, beyond the Cyrillic signs everywhere in the city, that this opening to the West is very important for Beijing.

“Exploit the full potential of cooperation”

Addressing the heads of state of five former Soviet republics, the Chinese president urged them to “fully exploit the possibilities of traditional cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, industrial capacity, energy and transportation,” according to a excerpt from the speech provided by the New China news agency. He also stressed the need to develop “new engines of growth (…) such as finance, agriculture, poverty reduction, carbon reduction, healthcare and digital innovation.”

China’s Eurasian appetite was marked in 2013 with Xi Jinping’s first trip to Kazakhstan to launch the New Silk Roads. In 2022, for his first post-Covid outing, China’s number one had also chosen Central Asia.

It is not known what agreements were reached. The propaganda wants us to forget that hydrocarbons represent between 60 and 80% of China’s trade with the countries of the region. Here we talk about solar panels and electric vehicles, and the Chinese giants in the sector have factories near Xi’an. The war in Ukraine has strengthened regional trade: 64,000 million euros of exchanges last year between China and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, that is, +22% since the beginning of this year.

An unprecedented summit

The former imperial capital Xi’an was not chosen at random. The caravans of the Silk Roads used to leave from there and the Silk Roads now run through there, with the “Chang’an” train, the old name of the imperial capital where this summit is held. It is a train that transports electric vehicles to these countries, and especially to Europe.

Xi Jinping also stressed the need to expand security cooperation to fight what Beijing calls the “three evils” in the region: separatism, terrorism and extremism. “The six countries must resolutely oppose foreign interference in the internal affairs of countries in the region and attempts to instigate ‘color revolutions,'” he added.

This unprecedented summit was unthinkable ten years ago. China intends to show that the future is written here, that the past is Russia, although Moscow retains a strong influence among the elites of the invited countries. And in Xi’an there is also the history of glorious China, of the Tang and Ming dynasties, which sent their emissaries and merchants across the Central Asian steppes to Europe. And the future that Beijing wants for the region is therefore tied to this much older past.

(With AFP)