Asia Centrale, Usa, Russia, Cina
– Viaggio del presidente cinese, Xi Jinping in quattro paesi del Centro Asia ad inizio settembre.
– La Cina, divenuta maggiore importatore mondiale di materie prime per l’industria (carbone, ferro, rame, nickel e alluminio, e secondo maggiore importatore di petrolio dopo gli Usa.
– L’85% del commercio cinese passa sul mare come pure l’80% delle sue importazioni di energia.
– Data questa dipendenza dalla trasporto marittimo, per ridurre i rischi per la sicurezza e l’interruzione dei rifornimenti nei mari del Sud ed Est Cina è alla ricerca di nuove fonti di materie prime ed energia.
– Negli ultimi anni c’è stato un veloce sviluppo degli investimenti cinesi in Centro Asia per energia e trasporti di collegamento dell’interno della Cina attraverso il Sud e Centro Asia in direzione dell’Europa e dell’Oceano Indiano.
– Centrale per questi progetti è la regione autonoma cinese dello Xinjiang, nel N-O, che con i suoi 3700 km di confine collega direttamente le province cinesi interne di etnia Han con il resto dell’Eurasia meridionale (Kazakistan, Kirghizistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan); il passo del Karakorum permette il collegamento con il porto pakistano di Gwadar, gestito dalla Cina.
– Xi Jinping ha parlato di “Zona economica della nuova via della seta”.
– Nel 2012 la Cina ha importato 21,3 miliardi di m3 di gas dal Turkmenistan (oltre la metà del suo import totale), con previsioni per il 2020 di 65 miliardi di m3.
– Il petrolio importato dal Kazakistan dovrebbe giungere a 1,5 milioni di b/g (giacimento di Kashagan);
– avviati progetti cinesi per petrolio e metalli dall’Afghanistan;
– dall’Uzbekistan accordi per l’importazione di 10 miliardi di m3 di gas;
– Pechino sta trasformando lo Xinjiang in una base di risorse importante per le province cinesi dell’interno a nuova industrializzazione.
– I progetti cinesi centrasiatici devono affrontare però varie difficoltà: alti costi per distanza e territorio, sfide logistiche per il trasporto trans-eurasiatico.
M K Bhadrakumar
– È in corso un mutamento nella geopolitica centroasiatica, in vista del ritiro delle forze Nato dall’Afghanistan e della proposta creazione di 9 basi militari americane in Afghanistan.
– La risposta della Russia ai rischi per la sicurezza dopo il ritiro Nato è il rafforzamento della sua presenza militare in Kyrgyzistan e Tajikistan,
– con il conseguente raffreddamento delle relazioni con gli Usa, preoccupati anche della crescente presenza della Cina nella regione.
– C’è la Russia dietro alla decisione strategica del Kyrgyzistan di togliere agli Usa la base militare di Manas (nonostante il suo affitto, $200 mn. l’anno scorso, fosse un introito importante); dietro a
– Dopo i 7 anni di oscillazioni seguite alla rivoluzione colorata del 2005, che avevano consentito una maggiore influenza Usa, Putin è riuscito a riportare il Kyrgyzistan nella propria orbita, consolidando la propria presenza militare nel paese, l’avvio di un grande programma di aiuto militare, di oltre $1MD.
– Il Kyrgyzistan sta per aderire al progetto di Unione Eurasiatica, l’integrazione delle ex rep. dell’Urss.
Putin ha siglato anche con il Tajikistan un accordo di estensione fino al 2042 dell’affitto della base militare russa.
China’s Growing Interest in Central Asia
Media Center, Video
September 27, 2013 | 1526 Print Text Size
– Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour of four Central Asian countries in early September highlighted a trend we’re following closely at Stratfor: China’s struggle to reduce its exposure to security risks and supply disruptions in the South and East China seas by exploring new overland sources of and transport routes for goods, energy and other natural resources.
– Over the past fifteen years, the Chinese economy’s extraordinary growth has turned it into the world’s largest importer of key industrial inputs like coal, iron ore, copper, nickel and aluminum, as well as the second-largest importer of crude oil after the U.S.
– Today, more than 85 percent of Chinese trade moves by sea, and more than 80 percent of its energy imports are seaborne. This leaves China perilously dependent on the safety and security of sea lanes, which serve as highways not only for getting Chinese-manufactured goods out to consumers in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, but also and increasingly for bringing in the raw materials that China can no longer wholly supply for itself.
– The Chinese government’s growing anxiety over the security implications of this double-sided dependency has taken many forms. Aggressive naval modernization, the speedy expansion of Chinese energy and resource acquisitions overseas, and the general push to raise China’s diplomatic profile abroad are some of the Communist Party’s most visible efforts to cope with the geopolitical implications of the country’s globe-spanning economic needs.
– But in recent years another, somewhat less overt, strategy for mitigating the impact of overseas supply disruptions has begun to take shape — in the form of rapidly expanding investments into energy projects in Central Asia and transport ties linking the Chinese interior through South and Central Asia on to Europe and the Indian Ocean Basin.
– The keystone for this process is the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in far northwest China. Xinjiang contains China’s entire 3,700 kilometer-long border with Central Asia, making it the only viable direct land bridge between the Han Chinese core provinces and the rest of southern Eurasia.
– It also contains the Karakoram Pass, China’s only overland route to Pakistan — and, in turn, to the Chinese-operated Port of Gwadar.
– These facts of geography help explain Xinjiang’s historical legacy as home to the fabled Silk Road trading routes, as well as the strong ethnic, cultural and religious ties that continue to bind Xinjiang’s Uighur ethnic majority to the Turkic communities of Central Asia and beyond. Today, China’s leaders are actively reviving these legacies, as seen in Xi Jinping’s recent call for a new "Silk Road Economic Zone" spanning Xinjiang and its Central Asian neighbors.
– Energy is the beating heart of China’s interests in Central Asia, and by extension in Xinjiang. In 2012, China imported 21.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan — more than half its total natural gas imports that year — and by 2020 that number could jump to almost 65 billion cubic meters.
– Likewise, Chinese imports of oil from Kazakhstan are set to grow dramatically in the coming years, potentially reaching 1.5 million barrels per day, as output from the Kashagan oil project rises.
– China is also working on oil and metals projects in Afghanistan, has agreed to import up to 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Uzbekistan, and is all the while rapidly transforming Xinjiang itself into a key resource base for newly industrializing provinces in the Chinese interior.
However, China’s ambitions in Central Asia face many constraints. Distance and terrain pose enormous cost and logistical challenges to large-scale trans-Eurasian transport, while a perennially unsteady security situation in virtually every part of the Central Asia region — including Xinjiang — will threaten Beijing’s dream of reducing its exposure to energy and resource supply disruptions. Nonetheless, as long as China’s energy needs continue to grow, the Party will be forced to explore such avenues in order to ensure energy, economic and political security, for both the country and the regime.
Read more: China’s Growing Interest in Central Asia | Stratfor
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US loses lone base in Central Asia
– The geopolitics of Central Asia has begun shifting in anticipation of the NATO forces ending their combat role as well as their pullout from Afghanistan and the proposed establishment of the nine American military bases in that country.
– Kyrgyzstan today gave the final touch to its strategic decision to demand that the US should vacate the Manas military base near the capital Bishkek by July 11, 2014.
– All signs are that Washington has accepted the Kyrgyz decision and does not propose to seek its review. Bishkek has been blowing hot and cold, but this time it seems the final, final decision. Bishkek loses a revenue of $60 which the Pentagon has been paying as rent for the base. The Americans say they paid a total of $200 million last year to the Kyrgyz government on various counts relating to the use of Manas.
– For the tiny Kyrgyz economy, this is a princely sum and the fact that Bishkek is forgoing it makes the decision over Manas a highly strategic one.
– Evidently, there is a Russian hand somewhere but between the present elected Kyrgyz leadership and Moscow there is such harmony that outsiders will never know the course of events in the period since the visit by President Vladimir Putin to Bishkek last September.
– Indeed, Putin has brought Kyrgyzstan firmly back into the Russian orbit, ending its peregrinations through the past seven or eight years following the ‘color revolution’ in 2005 and a rise in the US influence with the political elites in Bishkek.
– Kyrgyzstan is moving fast to join the Eurasia Union[e] project, which envisages close integration amongst the former Soviet republics. Russia has consolidated its military presence in Kyrgyzstan and by coincidence, Moscow announced today, just as Kyrgyz leadership signed the formal eviction order on Manas, that it is commencing a big military aid programme for Kyrgyzstan, which could be worth over $1billion.
– Putin also swung a deal with Dushanbe last October extending the lease for the Russian military base in Tajikistan till 2042. The consolidation of the Russian military presence in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is commonly perceived — and rightly so — as Moscow’s response to the likely security threats emanating from Afghanistan following the NATO forces’ withdrawal.
– However, there is also a bigger dimension to it in terms of the deep chill in Russia’s relations with the US as well as the unspoken — and unspeakable — fears or apprehensions regarding China’s growing presence in the Central Asian region.
– Curiously, China has distanced itself ostentatiously from the Kyrgyz decision to terminate the US military presence in Manas — unlike the high level of interest shown by the Russian media (here).
Posted in Military, Politics.
Tagged with Manas, Russia in Central Asia.