Central Asia Caught between the Great Powers

Abstract

Studies on contemporary Central Asia are often limited to an examination of Central Asia’s relations with Russia and China and the formation of this geopolitical region as a result of ‘external influence’ from the USA and its Western partners. Russia, for good reasons, regards Central Asia both as a ‘near abroad’ with which it is closely and diversely intertwined, and as an important geopolitical building block of ‘Greater Eurasia’ (plus the Eurasian Economic Union), whilst China views Central Asia as a ‘bulwark’ for its western territories, a reservoir of raw materials, market and a ‘Belt and Road’ springboard for its continental trade routes to Europe – a region that Beijing skilfully embeds within its geopolitical and geo-economic strategies. Western states, by contrast, currently need Central Asia primarily to contain Russia and China. Against the backdrop of Central Asia’s closely intertwined relations with Russia and China, this article seeks in particular to outline the process of emancipation of the Central Asian states as they move towards forming a resilient, solidarity-based alliance and a common economic and security area with its own security architecture. Whilst, in this process, the consultative meetings of the heads of state of the Central Asian states function as strategic dialogue platforms aimed at internal integration, the more bilaterally oriented ‘C5+’ mechanisms are subordinate to the concept of a multi-vector foreign policy, which is intended to balance influences and exploit them to economic advantage. A distinctive feature of this article is that it analyses the process whilst taking careful account of bilateral and multilateral documents.