A conversation on Central Asia with Niva Yau
Insights on CACP Line D; Central Asia’s lack of economic integration increases its willingness to risk secondary sanctions
I’m delighted to interview Niva Yau, an expert on the PRC’s influence in Central Asia. Niva Yau is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Her research work focuses on China-Central Asia relations and China’s new overseas security management infrastructure and initiatives including foreign bases and stations, the politics of foreign infrastructure, private security companies, intelligence network, in-China security training programs, governance export, information operations, and others. Between 2018 and 2023, Yau was based at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where she worked on commissioned research on China’s foreign policy, trade, and security in its western neighborhood, covering Central Asia and Afghanistan. Niva graciously agreed to this written interview request. – Joe
CRR: Hi Niva, many thanks for sharing your time and expertise. Let’s start on China-Russia relations in Central Asia. Is their relationship in the region more cooperative or competitive?
Niva Yau: I think there is a misconception that there has been this division of labor, Russia on military and China on trade. I think in general, so far, China Russia both have very similar goals and perspectives in the region. Up until the war in Ukraine, the relationship between China and Russia has been more cooperative because a lot of their goals were very similar, but obviously after the war in Ukraine the region's interest and outlook on Russia has changed and so has Russia's interest in Central Asia, but we haven't really seen, China coming in, you know, to fill that vacuum per se.
The relationship so far is still cooperative but is less cooperative compared to before the war in Ukraine because of the interest that Russia has in the region that China does not necessarily support. Going forward, I don't think Russia is in a position to compete with China per se.
Although we have seen a couple of new developments regarding Russia, wanting to be more involved in the oil and gas sector, by establishing a joint gas tariff within the Eurasian Economic Union, Russia has also invited Uzbekistan to these talks about unifying the tariffs for gas sales, which means that essentially Russia will be able to influence the prices of gas sales from Central Asia to China, which concerns China obviously, but also concerns Turkmenistan. The Turkmen side has been very vocal about not being on board with this plan, so in that sense we start to see a little bit of elements of competition. But this is not to say this is direct confrontation between China and Russia on gas, but it's more the Russian commercial interest to make sure that you know they are able to have a say on gas prices, especially because Russia is also increased their sales of gas to China. So to answer that question very simply, before the war in Ukraine it was more cooperative, but after the war Ukraine it is still cooperative, but less so and there's new points of competition.
CRR: How much do Moscow and Beijing value Central Asia? Is the region more important to one side than the other?
I think because of the relevance of the Xinjiang issue internationally, Beijing has paid a lot more attention to Central Asia in the past 5 years, precisely because having the neighboring countries on board with Beijing's policies on Xinjiang, has been crucial for China to uphold its international image and regional affairs. So we've seen that in the past 5 years actually China has increased various initiatives in the region, diplomatically, politically, economically and also militarily as well.
Through that, We can say that Beijing has valued central Asian more compared to when it was building the foundations of influence, but now it is about exercising that influence and also building deeper inroads into various areas that China already has already built good foundations in Central Asia.
Whereas I think Moscow’s view on Central Asia is much more complicated since the war on Ukraine. It has definitely shifted because the region is so detached from the global economy anyway, so Moscow is able to use the region to transit certain products that are crucial for its military industrial complex and also just other essential goods. Other countries around Russia have not been so open to becoming that transit country because of fear of secondary sanction.
Whereas, as you know, Central Asia has been very open to putting themselves at risk of secondary sanction because they're not that integrated in the global economy anyway, so the threats of secondary sanctions have not been that much of an issue for them.
I would say that right now there's definitely been more interest from Russia to pay attention to Central Asia because of this new factor. But I think, overall, for foreign policy, for overall policy, I still think that Beijing values Central Asia a lot more than Russia values Central Asia, precisely because Xinjiang is an incredibly important part of the region to the Chinese state, on the energy front, on the economic front and also on keeping sovereignty. That’s why I would say that Beijing values Central Asia more.
CRR: The old saw about Central Asia is that Russia brings the guns while China supplies the money. Is that cliché still true or are things shifting because of the invasion of Ukraine?
Niva Yau: This view of division of labor is a very old school view on Russia-China in the region. Yes it used to be that Russia had been able to make more inroads into the military sector in Central Asia, but this is no longer true. The armies in the region have professionalized, whereas in the beginning, in the nineties, of course, many in the military only spoke Russian, and so this gave Russia a natural advantage, in terms of military cooperation, when everybody speaks Russian.
The majority of military officers were trained in Russia, if not in other parts of the Soviet Union, so naturally people were more inclined to work with Russia. It was just simply a lot more convenient to continue to work with Russia in terms of military capacity. But this has changed especially in the past 10-15 years in Kazakhstan, in Uzbekistan, the military has, undergone various levels of reforms, there's a lot more people now in the military who speaks English and Chinese and are cooperating with not just China, but also other countries like India and the U.S., and Europe as well.
China obviously has paid a lot of interest in trying to work with the militaries in the region, but they are kept at a rather equipment level because language is still a big problem for these Central Asian militaries who are still relying on translators that are provided by the Chinese side, Chinese nationals who translates Chinese commands into Russian and vice versa. And this has been a problem. Recognizing this translation problem, it is being dealt with. In Uzbekistan for example, their military school now has free Mandarin classes. But this is a process that is going to take a long time, obviously, to achieve saturation of language skills.
Members of the regional armies having dedicated individuals who speak Chinese is not something that is going to be seen overnight, but of course everybody speaks Russian, and many speak English. So, even though China is definitely interested to work more on the military side, it's not on par with the ease that Russia still very much enjoys.
Regarding China providing the money. Obviously China has a lot of economic interest in the region and trade has been the backbone of building up Chinese influence in in in the region. So for this influence to sustain, then trade has to consistently increase. This is something that we have seen in the past 20 years. China is willing to constantly explore new areas of trade, to deepen that foundation of influence. This is something that obviously Russia is not able to match. Although we can see that Russia, in various ways – for example, through the Eurasian Economic Union – tries to make Russian products more attractive within the union. Which means that certain products that are Chinese-made have been subjected to higher tariffs and therefore leads to less sales in Central Asia, because, it's cheaper to import Russian products of certain categories of tariffs. And this brought a side story, an issue between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where Kyrgyzstan were importing products from China and labeling it as made in Kyrgyzstan, so that it could bypass tariffs that are imposed by Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union.
So we do see in these sort of very subtle way, that Russia is stepping into make sure that it still has its own position even in sectors that traditionally “belong to China” in this division of labor. We do see that Russia tries to have a seat at the table on economic issues, is how I would put it. It’s not to replace China per se, but still have a level of influence over those sectors.
CRR: You’ve written before that Central Asia may soon find out the downsides of dependency on China. What could the region do to lessen dependency on Beijing, given Central Asia’s geographical and economic realities?
Decreasing this substantial level of dependency is something that the region is exploring and is actually moving towards that direction. The region is already moving towards building its own independent political identity. This is incredibly important because for the past 3 decades the region was a bit stuck with the identity that it’s part of the former Soviet Union, and everything that they get grouped into is still in that category, of belonging to the former Soviet Union, the group of people who are Russian speaking who share similar modern histories.
And this political identity unfortunately has meant that in various ways Central Asian governments and the way that society works still very much mirror the one that is in Russia today.
The war in Ukraine has sped up the process of the region moving away from Russia. Moving away from Russia partly is also trying to move away from this dependency on China because by moving away from Russia, it is moving away from the old ways of how the region functions and how the region works. And in this process of discovering a new identity, the Central Asian political identity, it's a process that is allowing the region to rethink their place in the world. This is a process that will lead the region to be less dependent on China because they can see that the region needs to look for diverse partners, so we've seen the region, you know, exploring the Islamic identity – they’ve been reaching out to Arabic states.
Heads of Central Asian states have been going to places like Qatar, Mecca, much more frequently than before, even building various relations with other Arab states like Egypt and hosting business forums and exploring logistics routes.
These are very serious conversations, that were being held 10 years ago, but it's being held now much more frequently. In the process of Central Asia exploring their new political identity, they are looking at various different foreign partners. They will not necessarily be able to entirely replace their dependence on China – but they will have a lot more foreign actors to work with on various things and expand choices for the region. This is the only way that they can build this fresh political identity, one that allows them to explore ways to be less dependent on Beijing. In very simple words, Central Asia needs a fresh political identity that is new and one that allows them to build as a diverse portfolio of foreign partners as possible.
CRR: Turkmenistan and China appear to be inching towards an agreement on Line D of the Central Asia-to-China Pipeline (CACP), which would increase Central Asia’s supply of natural gas to China. Beijing put out some very strong signals of interest in the pipeline earlier this year, but there’s been no apparent public progress on negotiations.
What’s been the hold up? Is it Beijing’s concern about Turkmenistan’s ability to produce sufficient natural gas volumes? Reputational risk due to Turkmenistan’s methane-intensive natural gas production? Something else? I know you’ve also mentioned in some of our conversations that security considerations regarding pipeline transportation through volatile regions may be weighing on Beijing’s calculus.
Niva Yau: So Line D of the Central Asia to China gas pipeline has been on the table since the beginning. This is a capacity issue and diversity issue because currently all of the lines are basically similar routes. The route runs from the eastern part of Turkmenistan, goes north to eastern part of Uzbekistan, runs into Kazakhstan and then into Xinjiang region. These pipelines are over ground and over the years China has been very nervous about these over ground pipelines, especially when the eastern part of Turkmenistan, where the pipeline starts, is very close to Afghanistan. So there's a lot of concerns about pipeline security. So, Line D supposedly will go from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, both on the east side, but instead of going into Kazakhstan it will go into the Fergana Valley, through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then in the south of Kyrgyzstan into the southern part of China.
Line D is supposed to feed the southern part of the Xinjiang region, which is extremely deprived of electricity sources and water sources and just the logistical routes in general the southern part of Xinjiang is still rather disconnected from the north and also from other parts of China.
Part of the issue for the holdup is the Fergana Valley. Almost every single summer there are local level conflicts between 3 of the countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan – over water. The way that these borders in that region are sectioned off from each other are extremely messy. The borders are not clear, a lot of villagers cross between different countries on a day to day basis to get water, and this is an area of mixed ethnicities as well.
Imagine implementing a transnational construction project where you have to coordinate 3 governments, not just at the state level, not just at the capital level, but also at the local district level – not even the local government level, but the local district level, which is very detached from the capitals to begin with.
This is an extremely difficult task for any construction company. The complications were there for many years, due to local level conflicts and local governance. A lot of these issues are extremely localized, and so these are not necessarily projects that can be pushed at a government to government level.
Taking into account the practical issues as well, the logistics of getting construction materials to these areas are extremely difficult. The electricity transmission lines in those areas are not sufficient to sustain a pipeline of this scale, so a lot of basic infrastructure has to be in place for this pipeline to physically be constructed. Building pumping stations means needing to have electricity transmission towers that actually feed these pumping stations.
The difficult tasks of building line D are incredibly localized, through conflict zones which are so far from the capitals, that central Asian politicians at the capitals are unable even to solve these local level conflicts. The line D had been, almost indefinitely postponed, but this has changed recently because of some of the practical measures that are being made to building the Kyrgyz section of the China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan railway. This will facilitate pipeline construction and sustain the energy and supply side logistics for the pipeline to operate. There have been more resources going into the southern part of Kyrgyzstan, which is leading to much more concrete plans and meetings, as far as I can see, to solving some of those local issues that I mentioned in order for the pipeline to be constructed. I've heard from a various people on the ground that it has never been this close, precisely because of some of the practical issues that are sufficiently being addressed.
CRR: Any projects you’re working on or other materials that you want to flag for readers?
Niva Yau: I have been shifting more to do not just China-Central Asia relations, but also doing more global China issues. And one of the newer subjects that I've been diving a lot more into is the way that China pursues information power in the world.
This is not necessarily just about controlling media and inserting sort of narratives in media outlets and on social media. It's much more about containing the information environments and people who are information gatekeepers to control the environment of what can be said or not said about China’s domestic and international policies.
This global pursuit of information power is part of my new study on China's overseas security activities. It’s important because the way that China understands information power is part of a security paradigm in order for China to secure itself and to match its military power to its economic status in the world as a major power. I suggest anyone interested in the topic to check out a new report I co-authored with Mareike Olhberg for the International Republican Institute.
CRR: Terrific. Thanks for taking the time for the interview and for sharing your insights today.
Niva Yau: Thank you for inviting me to your project to do this interview, Joe. Thanks.
The China-Russia Report is an independent, nonpartisan newsletter covering political, economic, and security affairs within and between China and Russia. All articles, comments, op-eds, etc represent only the personal opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the position(s) of The China-Russia Report.