In Chapter 12, Raghavendra Mishra, discusses another specific aspect of China’s engagement in South Asia, with a focus on “measuring” its maritime context in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). As someone with naval experience, Mishra provides a valuable “practitioner’s” perspective, though it must be emphasized that this view does not reflect the positions/policies of the Indian government or the Royal Indian Navy. Mishra’s assessment — where he locates the key Chinese interests in the IOR and explores the IOR dynamics between China and India — leads to the conclusion that (at least in the maritime domain), a “paradoxical and uneasy mix of cooperation and rivalry” or what some would term “congagement”, exists and persists. But this is not an unmanageable strategic situation, and it is opined that the mature and prudent leaderships in both capitals will go a long way in addressing the complexity of the relations between both powers.
Central Asia
The final part of the book is devoted to an examination of China’s relations with the other key geographic areas of its “non-traditional” periphery, Central Asia. Chapter 13 presents a unique Central Asian perspective on this issue. Aidar Amrebayev, a Kazakhstani scholar, discusses the broad overview of geostrategic developments in Central Asia, noting the region has always been a geographic area that is shaped by great power politics or what he notes as the “ratio of centres of power”. Today’s strategic context presents Central Asian states with three politico-economic models or “projects”: the Russian model of a more Soviet-style Eurasian integration, China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the American democratic-sovereignty template. While each has its strengths/weaknesses, Central Asian states “cannot afford to choose” one or the other as this may mean not only a closer induction into a particular power’s orbit and hence a potential loss in strategic autonomy, but there may also be “contradictory interactive impacts” from the other competing powers. Thus, Central Asian countries have sought to maintain a balance between the big powers, “optimizing the benefits offered to them while keeping a distance”.
The discussion on regional geopolitical currents is complemented by Alessandro Arduino’s (Chapter 14) study of the broad economic developments in Central Asia, with a particular reference to China’s burgeoning economic interests there. Arduino notes that China has emerged as a major economic player in Central Asia, a development which has engendered both optimism and anxiety among regional states. Even as China’s economic approach toward the region has increasingly focused on transregional integration, a strong energy focus is palpable. Thus, even as regional infrastructural investment and development are being prioritized, a key objective of China’s economic agenda has been to develop an “alternative land energy route”. Beijing also hopes that the development of its Central Asian periphery will have a reciprocal economic impact on its autonomous region of Xinjiang, which borders Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and whose modernization is seen as vital for addressing the separatist and terrorism problems there. Arduino points out that, under Xi Jinping, the key platform to advance China’s development interests in Central Asia has been the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB).
A deeper examination of China’s SREB is the focus of Hongzhou Zhang’s Chapter 15. The SREB, the overland wing of China’s One Belt One Road initiative, is noted as a “key pillar” of Beijing’s larger global strategy, and to that end, the Chinese government has been making much effort to strategize and pursue this plan. But as Zhang observes, the Central Asian region is key to its success. This means that certain regional dynamics, particularly in Central Asia, will present complications for China’s SREB. Not only is Central Asia a meeting point for great power politics, Central Asia remains fractured by ongoing disputes or contestations involving boundary, water and energy interests as well as geopolitical differences and rivalry. Moreover, as the previous chapter also points out, a degree of ambivalence still colors Central Asian states’ perceptions toward the SREB.
The final chapter by Ambrish Dhaka focuses on another specific aspect of China’s Central Asia strategy, namely its policy toward the regionally and geopolitically critical state of Afghanistan. This is a country described as the “Heart of Asia”, with a strategic geography that intersects South Asia, Central Asia, Eurasia and the Middle East. Beijing recognizes the strategic potential of Afghanistan, and in the wake of the 2014 drawdown of U.S. forces, it has tried to play an increasingly larger role in that country. Afghanistan is critical for Chinese interests in Central Asia as well as its broader western periphery. Economically, Kabul is seen as a vital “trade and transit hub” for China’s transregional development plans as well as its energy/resource needs. On security, particularly relating to its own concerns over the problems of separatism, terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang, Beijing perceives “it needs more than its traditional regional partner” of Pakistan, and Kabul represents a “front-line” state on this front. Moreover, Afghanistan has an ineluctable security and geopolitical nexus to Pakistan (which itself is a key South Asian partner to China).
Taken together, the chapters of this volume explore the various facets of China’s “new”, more omnidirectional regional policy — an evolving diplomacy that pays equal, if not more, attention to China’s western periphery at a time when the declared focus of U.S. strategy is to turn greater American attention eastward. Indeed, the Indo-Pacific strategy being developed by the Trump administration brings attention to the new dimension of great power rivalry in the India Ocean region. Ultimately, the chapters aim to provide another platform from which one may understand China’s periphery policy and, by extension, its international relations and rise, in greater totality and depth.
1Xi Jinping, The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), p. 326.
2Bonnie Glaser and Deep Pal, “China’s periphery diplomacy initiative: Implications for China’s neighbours and the United States”, China–US Focus, November 7, 2013.
3Important speech of Xi Jinping at peripheral diplomacy work conference, Xinhua, October 25, 2013.
4 Ibid.
5Su Xiaohui, “Why China puts more and more emphasis on peripheral diplomacy,” People’s Daily (overseas edition), December 22, 2014.
6Graham Allison, “Thucydides’s trap has been sprung in the Pacific”, Financial Times, August 21, 2012.
7Aaron Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, American and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 88–89.
Broad Regional Context
Chapter
2
China’s Changing Perspective of its Periphery Environment
Jianwei Wang
The periphery always occupies an important position in China’s foreign policy. However, the degree of criticalness and urgency of the peripheral diplomacy could vary depending on China’s perception of its peripheral environment: whether it is stable and benign or volatile and threatening. Decision-makers in Beijing make policy adjustments accordingly. Since 2010, China’s periphery environment has undergone significant geostrategic