Sino-U.S. Cooperation

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and Turkmenistan. Beginning in 1997, China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) purchased 60.3 percent of the shares in the Akyubinsk project in Kazakhstan increasing to 85.6 percent in 2003.¹¹¹ China and Kazakhstan also agree to establish an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea into Xinjiang with further distribution into eastern China. China established similar energy deals with Turkmenistan to establish a natural gas pipeline into Xinjiang, and the CNPC brokered deal to construct oil pipelines connecting into Kazakhstan line from Turkmenistan. In addition, Beijing is planning on construction of a rail way line linking Uzbekistan and Xinjiang province via Kyrgyzstan, which clearly demonstrates Beijing’s political and economic commitments to ensure oil and gas supply from the Central Asian states.

3.4. China’s Central Asia Policy after September 11

The September 11 Event is a key issue in the landscape of global security, especially for the U.S. military projection and presence in this region that highlighted the importance of Central Asia. Consequently, both the U.S. military projection and its political influence in Central Asia have greatly affected China’s Central Asia policy.

Followed by last section mentioned above, the changing of China’s Central Asia policy should be analyzed by the following three aspects.

3.4.1. Sino-U.S. Cooperation

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the bad relations between China and the U.S. caused by the collision between a U.S. EP-3 surveillance aircraft and a Chinese

111 Charles Hawkins and Robert R. Love. ed., The New Great Game—Chinese Views on Central Asia (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2006), p. 152.

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interceptor fighter aircraft on April 1, 2001 became a less important for the United States. Moreover, the U.S. WOT in reaction to the September 11 attacks changed the focus of China’s strategy in Central Asian region. In this context, China would like to seek cooperation with the United States, which came as a result of the two nations benefiting from mutual assistance in certain areas instead of changing the good relationship.¹¹²

China views the U.S. WOT in Central Asia as both an opportunity for cooperation and a potential loss over which relations with the U.S. might become strained. The balance of power in Central Asia is shifted by the Bush administration’s focus on defeating the Taliban regime and undermining al-Qaeda control in Afghanistan. Consequentially, Beijing viewed the increased U.S. presence and influence in Central Asia as a strategic loss. Because Beijing has had intent on gaining greater influence and economic advantage through SCO in Central by the time the Soviet collapsed, the increased U.S. presence created by the WOT put a halt to this effort. However, Beijing sought to utilize the potential strategic gain by using the result of U.S. WOT in Central Asia as a mechanism to facilitate greater crackdowns on separatist groups in the XAUR. Cooperation between China and the U.S. in the WOT therefore become complicated because of the U.S. desire for China’s assistance, balanced against U.S. concern about human rights in China.¹¹³

The United States did not overtly agree with China on cracking down on the minority populations in the XUAR as terrorist threats. Although the U.S. put the ETIM on the list of terrorist organizations in 2002, Washington recognized that there

112 Matthew Oresman, “Reassessing the Fleeting Potential for U.S.-China Cooperation in Central Asia,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 6 (Washington: Winter 2008): 5.

113 Daren Adam Epstein, pp. 43-47.

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were organizations that could be condemned for using violence in pursuit of their goals and others that were legitimate political entities.¹¹⁴

The U.S. WOT did not merely create an opportunity for greater cooperation with China, but also reduce tensions between the two countries by treating China as a strategic competitor to fight terrorism. Concerning the increased U.S. influence in Central Asia as a result of the WOT, Beijing continues to act as a balance against U.S.

hegemony. China’s strategy is concentrated on maintaining good relations with the United States, avoiding conflicts, and enhancing trade relations, but also sought to limit U.S. strategic advances in Central Asia. Keeping with this strategy, Beijing has been uncooperative in assisting Washington in efforts on WOT. Rather, both nations subordinated the more contentious aspects of their relationship to achieve relative strategic gains from the WOT.¹¹⁵

Many Chinese argued that Beijing should take advantage of U.S. eagerness for support to shore up its own often troubled relationship with the United States and thereby benefit from pursuing China’s own version of a engagement strategy to keep U.S. power in check. Others said that the conflict between China and the United States was no longer the most important confrontation in the world as the “three forces—national separatism, religious extremism, and terrorism have become the focus of international strife especially in Xinjiang where is in the neighbor of Central Asia. Therefore, some Chinese officials have made it a point to emphasize that the U.S. military presence in the region contributes to peace and stability. There is no denying the fact that a dramatic shift in China’s priority after September 11, 2001,

114 Daren Adam Epstein, pp. 43-47.

115 Daren Adam Epstein, pp. 43-47.

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contributed to an improvement in the overall atmospherics and tone of the Sino-U.S.

relationship.¹¹⁶ In short, behind Beijing’s solidarity with the anti-terrorism coalition lay great expectations of finding a common enemy once again to reconstruct a cooperative and strategic partnership with the U.S. after more than a decade of drift, distrust, and acrimony following the Soviet collapse.

On the other hand, maintaining a good, stable, and predictable relationship with the United States is considered practically important to China’s continued economic growth, as the U.S. is the largest source of investment, capital, and technology and provides the largest market for Chinese goods. Furthermore, China hopes that the U.S.

Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) could be used internally to strengthen the hand of the Chinese regime against its opponents. From Beijing’s perspective, and underlying aspect of the American campaign is that its thrust, throughout the world, will be to favor the cause of order and stability over chaos and instability. And this also serves to China’s interest. Knowing well that the case for Xinjiang to exercise self-determination historically is much stronger than that of Kashmir or Chechnya, China has always very been sensitive to territory integrity issue. China’s support assumption that its success would help Beijing solve the oldest problems faced by the Chinese empire: how to pacify, control and purify its newly acquired territory in Xinjiang which accounted one sixth of China’s landmass and are rich in mineral resources, oil and gas. Within days after September 11, 2001, China sought to link the worldwide campaign against terrorism with its efforts against “separatism’ Xinjiang and Tibet. Cloaking its actions in the rhetoric of counterterrorism, Beijing seized this opportunity to enhance its efforts to crush various opposition and separatist groups,

116 Dan Burghart, “The New Nomads? The American Military Presence in Central Asia”, China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 2 (Washington: Summer 2007):15.

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curtail religious freedom, and silence the voice of a restive ethnic minority because “it could now cast its support of the anti-terrorism campaign as morally correct, not merely politically expedient, also without worrying too much about human rights violations.” Nearly 4 months after al-Qaeda was implicated in relation with the September 11 terrorist attacks, China’s State Council Information Office issued a document on January 21, 2002, entitled “East Turkistan’s terrorist forces cannot get away without impunity,” which marked by far the most direct attempt by the Chinese government to link—and thereby justify—its crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, with the American campaign against Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda.