Photo courtesy of Presidential Press and Information Office, Kremlin.
For months, as Russia’s fiscal downturn and economic protectionism dragged Central Asian economies down with it, China has continued to ratchet up investments in the region. Slowly, methodically, Beijing has surpassed Russia as the region’s most substantive trading partner. Moreover, China has managed to wrangle a chokehold on Central Asian gas through its expanding China-Central Asia pipeline matrix. Not only will the pipeline network soon be providing at least 40 percent of China’s imported gas, but Central Asian gas exports to Russia – the traditional destination for the region’s gas –have dropped nearly 60 percent since the pipeline first came online in 2009, including a 74 percent collapse from Turkmenistan.
Under the dual “March Westward” and “Silk Road Economic Belt” policies, China has effectively boxed Russia out as the region’s preferred economic partner. And now, after the latest round of proposed investments, this reality has become that much starker – and Western media is finally starting to take notice.
In an article titled “Putin is Losing Out to China in Central Asia’s Latest ‘Great Game,’” Bloomberg details the means and mechanisms with which Beijing has managed to redirect Central Asia’s economic trajectory from its former colonizer to a new patron. Among the instruments with which Beijing has cultivated Central Asian relations is a new $16.3 billion fund “to finance railways, roads, and pipelines across Central Asia.” While specific projects within this fund’s purview have not yet been detailed, the fund, managed by Chinese policy banks, will help enhance the proposed resuscitation of former Silk Road routes.
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