Professor at the Catholic Institute of Paris and sinologist, Emmanuel Lincot is an associate researcher at IRIS. He is the author of The Very Big Game: Central Asia versus Beijing (editions du Cerf, 2023).
LE FIGARO. – “Central Asia for Beijing constitutes a security problem and a new zone of economic and diplomatic expansion,” you say. How is China, thanks to the Ukrainian war, trying to supplant Russia there?
Emmanuel LINCOT.- Even before the war in Ukraine, Beijing did not hesitate to recall its centuries-old interest in the region. Beijing keeps telling anyone who will listen that the history of Central Asia and China is a connected history. To update the point, Beijing began to claim a growing role in the region since it made Xinjiang one of its strategic priorities.
Remember that this region of northwest China, better known as the Uighur country, has provided access to the whole of Central Asia and its former independent Republics since 1991. And it is precisely thanks to this Soviet collapse that China began to forge links in the energy field or in the cultural field by creating in 2004 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the first Confucius Institute in history (there are now more than 500 in the world ).
Added to these initiatives is the Central Asian country/China summit in Xi’an (April 2023) which confirms the leadership role taken by China as already revealed in September 2022 at the Organization of Shanghai’s cooperation in Xi Jinping’s statements against Vladimir Putin. China is present everywhere in the field of infrastructure, telecommunications but also on the security level by developing intense cooperation with all countries in the fight against terrorism.
Can the “Chinese Dream” take hold in Central Asia? What are its strengths?
The “Chinese Dream” is aimed above all at the Chinese with the promise of a fairer society and growth for the greatest number. However, we can seriously doubt this because the situation is not good today in China. With 20% unemployment in the cities, growth at half mast and American sanctions slowing down the economy, many Chinese believe that this “Chinese Dream” will only be limited to a slogan. In Central Asia, this “Chinese dream” is struggling to take root and China’s growing interference is creating tensions there. Let’s not forget that the majority of the population there is Turkish-speaking and views with great suspicion the policy undertaken by China against the Uighurs, for example.
The “Great Game” refers to Arthur Conolly’s expression and the clash of the Russian and British empires in the 19th century. Why use the term “Very Big Game”?
Everyone has used this expression, including the writer Rudyard Kipling who also claimed authorship, without forgetting the very fine observer and journalist Peter Hopkirk. Until the Cold War, rivalry in this part of the world was essentially between London and Saint Petersburg. There are of course some “intruders”, in related fields such as archeology or geology, who see French, Germans or Japanese surveying this immense space which they map and inventory by locating the historical lines of force. and the phenomena of hybridity which, on a cultural level, have marked the entire region. We think of Greco-Buddhist art and spiritualities (Buddhism, Nestorianism, Mazdaism, etc.) which took these famous routes that are the “Silk Roads”.
We will also note that this second expression is contemporary or almost contemporary with that of the “Great Game” and coincides with a pivotal moment in history: European colonization. The “Very Big Game” for its part designates a completely different period, ours, where the Europeans are out of the game while the Chinese are fully invested in the region. It is historically familiar and China uses it to form a Eurasian glacis around itself of which it remains the center. A priori, the Americans are no longer in the game. In reality, their withdrawal from Kabul in 2021 does not mark their definitive withdrawal. Quite the contrary. Here as elsewhere, the Sino-American rivalry of the century is played out in a mirror effect.
In your work, you use the term “force fields” in relation to Central Asia. For what ?
This expression borrowed from the vocabulary of physics refers to rivalries and movements both centripetal (towards the center, Editor’s note) and centrifugal (which moves away from the center, Editor’s note) which pit the political centers and their periphery within each other. of a very vast geographical area which, let us remember, extends from the Caucasus to Mongolia. In the modern era (19th century), these rivalries are characterized by struggles between the Russians and the British in buffer regions which, over the long term, remain Afghanistan and Kashmir. Added to this are the antagonisms between reformers and conservatives in a Muslim region where pan-Turkism attracts significant votes.
Superimposed on this modern layer is another, very current one, which sees the Russian presence ebbing in favor of China. This reflux began with the Russian decolonization of the Central Asian space carried out de facto upon the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In this, we can say that the Soviet disintegration but also the collapse of this empire did not completely disappear. still completed to this day. Even if Russia has retained some fine remains in the region (military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan), its authority is contested by China, whose financial power and the New Silk Roads project are undermining Russia in a region that she nevertheless considers her backyard.
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Let us also not forget the regional powers as well as the small terrorist groups which are increasing their centers of interest in the region and claiming an even greater role each year. This is true for Iran, Qatar, Turkey without forgetting allegiances linked to Daesh or Al-Qaeda; which among all these actors give Central Asia the role of a diplomatic laboratory for some or of radicalism for others. In this, Central Asia is not only a field of forces but the place for observing a very Great Game. The latter naturally involves our own future on a geopolitical level.
The “Silk Roads” project calls upon an ancient imagination. Is he still acting?
It remains entirely topical and offers particular resonances to each of China’s partners. Xi Jinping has succeeded in communicating technological innovations by reconnecting with historical and imperial continuity. It gives it from all points of view a much greater historical depth than the Western narrative, which focuses on human rights. Now this does not mean that the countries of Central Asia are definitively acquired by China. Everyone remains fiercely committed to respecting their sovereignty.
Finally, you emphasize that Central Asia is a region that is far from being unified. However, can we find as many common characteristics there as in Europe?
The majority of the region’s populations may be Turkish-speaking and share common values inherited from the Islam of the Sufi brotherhoods, but sovereignism remains strong, especially as their respective relationship to Russian colonization on the one hand, and the Soviet legacy of the the other is contrasted.
Added to these differences in appreciation of Moscow is the relationship with China with which these states share a communist ideological background and the choice of authoritarian governance. On the other hand, unlike the European Union, we hardly see the emergence of a common policy with the notable exception of foreign policy where the search for a third way remains a tropism for everyone. And this, Emmanuel Macron’s France has clearly understood the meaning and responded in a timely manner to the recent requests from these countries (the head of state visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on November 1, Editor’s note ).
