Posts Tagged ‘China in the world’

Time China met its promises and took leading role in Afghanistan

Posted: January 6, 2018 in South China Morning Post
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A further piece for the South China Morning Post about what more China could do in Afghanistan. More on this topic over the year as well I think.

Time China met its promises and took leading role in Afghanistan
Beijing needs to move beyond rhetoric and take more concrete action to help and guide the violence-torn nation on its northern borders, writes Raffaello Pantucci

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 02 January, 2018, 3:03pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 02 January, 2018, 8:48pm

The year has ended with a number of banner headlines about China’s engagement in Afghanistan.

Hosting his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced China wanted to include Afghanistan in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. At around the same time, one of the messages to emerge from the Afghan defence minister’s visit to Beijing suggested that China was going to invest in a security force in Badakhshan province.

In fact, neither of these announcements is new and while it is good that China is increasing the positive public announcements around its engagement with Kabul, 2018 needs to be the year that China follows through on its rhetoric and takes a greater leadership role in Afghanistan.

The key change in China’s engagement in Afghanistan can be traced back to 2013 when Beijing started to perceive that Washington’s talk of withdrawal was genuine. While the withdrawal was not as complete as was suggested at the time, it showed Beijing that Washington’s commitment to Afghanistan had limits. It also reminded Beijing the glaringly obvious fact that chaos in Afghanistan was something which would have direct ramifications on China. Unlike the US, on another continent, China shares a direct border with Afghanistan.

This started to shape a shift in policy from Beijing. A clearer effort towards engagement was undertaken, even going so far as to undertake joint projects with the United States. China’s political engagement and activity increased and a senior diplomat, Sun Yuxi, was appointed to act as a point of focus for China’s efforts in the country.

And around Afghanistan, growing investment flowed into neighbouring Pakistan and Central Asia as part of Xi Jinping’s keynote foreign policy vision of the Belt and Road international trade and infrastructure initiative. The elevation of these investments under the umbrella of the Belt and Road gave them much greater significance and highlighted the importance of a stable Afghanistan to deliver success in the long-term.

Yet what is surprising in the five years that have followed is the relatively limited volume of activity that has actually taken place or delivered change. China has certainly upped its game in Afghanistan, but it has not yet taken on the game-changing role it could play. Its investments have remained relatively limited and in the case of the largest investment in the country, the copper mine at Mes Aynak, has not moved forwards.

While aid has increased, Afghanistan is a country that needs a sustainable long-term economy, not just aid handouts. Big projects have failed to move forwards and deliver the tax revenues that the country hoped for and Beijing has yet to play a significant role in security terms. On peace talks, China has played a role as honest broker between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but this has so far not brought the necessary actors to the table to foster peace in the country.

Going forwards, China should focus its efforts on a two-pronged effort which focuses on delivering meaningful economic investment into the country and consolidating and leading peace efforts.

On economic investment, Beijing needs to make sure greater investment with local benefits materialises in the country. So far, aid projects have been delivered, alongside some infrastructure investment. Both of these are hugely positive and necessary, but are not providing the sort of transformative economic investment that Afghanistan needs.

Opening up direct train routes and markets is important, but China needs to make it easier for business people in both countries to move back and forth, and for goods to go between the countries. Furthermore, Beijing should incentivise small and medium sized enterprises to develop, something that could be addressed through getting China’s policy banks to extend low interest loans to firms working on or in Afghanistan.

At a larger level, creating a joint investment fund with other international partners to support the construction of infrastructure in Afghanistan would help both encourage Chinese firms to move forwards in this direction, but also help build the necessary physical wiring which will reconnect Afghanistan to its neighbourhood and realise the country’s place in the Belt and Road initiative.

At a more strategic level, Afghanistan needs to develop a bigger tax revenue base. Its natural resource sector is an obvious source that has so far not been tapped as much as it could be, in part as Chinese firms have not lived up to their initial commitments. The government should step in to fix this with companies that have already signed contracts to deliver on them, as well as support others that are exploring opportunities. Copper prices finally appear to be back on an upward trajectory, suggesting that the Mes Aynak project may become more economically interesting again.

The key complaints that companies often find in seeking to invest in Afghanistan are security and corruption. In both contexts, the Chinese government can play a greater role in supporting firms.

China already provides some support to Afghan security forces, but greater central budgetary support would help justify a greater Afghan security role for Chinese projects and investments. On corruption, if Beijing was to work with others (like the West, India and Iran) to ensure the rules of the road in Afghanistan were firmly marked out for their firms that are investing in the country, it could help transform the business environment.

Finally, Beijing should use its growing regional clout to try to bring some order and coherence to the many different regional institutions that have been developed around Afghanistan’s future. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, the Istanbul or Heart of Asia Process, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and more have all held varying levels of engagements in Afghanistan. And China itself has created or taken part in a growing constellation of bilateral, trilateral, regional and more forums which focus on Afghanistan.

Kabul needs the attention and support, but a growing problem is a lack of coherence and confusion about which format is actually delivering effective change. It is also stretching Afghanistan’s diplomatic managerial capacity. Were China to try to drive some coherent direction to this range of regional institutions then it might be possible to more effectively marshal the international community. While it will be impossible to ever create a single entity that captures everybody and everything connected with Afghanistan, narrowing down the numbers and focusing efforts would undoubtedly help.

Raffaello Pantucci is director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London

China can cope with any bumps along the way on ‘Belt and Road’

Posted: December 2, 2017 in South China Morning Post
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Catching up again on posting with an old piece for the South China Morning Post, trying to address some of the rather vacuous commentary that exists around the Belt and Road Initiative. Don’t totally agree with the choice of title, but that was of course an editorial choice. Of course more on this to come, and please check out my other site China in Central Asia for my history of work on this. A few bigger projects coming on this topic next year.

Also to catch up on some commentary, spoke to the Independent about UK’s historical offender management programme, to the Washington Post about leadership in terrorist groups, to Vox about vehicle terrorist attacks, to AFP about jihadi returnees from Syria, to the Daily Mail about equipment being used to monitor potential returnees, to Newsweek for a historical piece about the Paris attacks, to the National about terrorism trends, to Talk Radio about the Las Vegas shooting, to the Independent about the same incident, to the Washington Post after the recent New York attack, to the Wall Street Journal about terrorism in Germany, to Sky News about what social media companies are doing to counter terrorism, to the Times after minister Rory Stewart’s comments about jihadis dying in Syria, to the South China Morning Post about China’s activity in Syria and finally, to the Economist for this short video on returning foreign terrorist fighters.

Opinion: China can cope with any bumps along the way on ‘Belt and Road’ 

Beijing has long experience dealing with countries involved in its massive trade initiative and the idea that it’s not prepared for problems is misleading, writes Raffaello Pantucci

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 04 November, 2017, 3:32pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 04 November, 2017, 10:17pm

COMMENTS: 3 

There is an increasingly tired narrative about how China’s encounters with problems in countries involved in its “Belt and Road Initiative” are evidence of potential bumps along the way.

Implicit within these statements is the idea that the project (as though the belt and road is a single project) is still being developed and conceptualised, and that these problems are something for down the road. The reality is that the initiative is already under way and China is already managing the problems it is encountering.

Announced in 2013, the initiative was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s way of stamping his name on something that was already under way. The story of Chinese investment in Central Asia goes back to the first days of the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the Chinese economy grew, it slowly spilt over its western borders, following the natural flow of regional trade. As trouble in China’s Xinjiang got out of hand, an approach of using heavy economic investment to improve the region only accelerated this flow. This became the root of the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Down in southern China, the 1999 Kunming Initiative aimed to foster greater connectivity for Yunnan province, all under the auspices of former president Jiang Zemin’s Great Western Development Strategy. This became the root of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor.

In Pakistan, as far back as 2002, former premier Zhu Rongji visited Pakistan to inaugurate work at the port in Gwadar.

Meanwhile ex-president Hu Jintao announced a surge in trade and investment with Pakistan in 2006. The bones of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor had been laid out long before Premier Li Keqiang signed a memorandum of understanding in 2013. And none of this covers the port investments in Sri Lanka and other Southeast Asian ports that have long bothered India.

There is no doubt that the agglomeration of all of these projects under a single umbrella has turbocharged them. While previously projects somewhat sputtered along, the high-level attention that is accorded by becoming belt and road initiatives, plus the investments and companies that follow, have changed their dynamics. But the key point to remember is that something was already under way. This is not, for the most part, completely fresh and brand new investment. It builds on old ideas and in some cases on old contracts.

Consequently, it is incorrect to say that China is completely new to these countries and completely new to problems they may encounter. Kyrgyzstan, for example, has faced a few moments of domestic instability. Back in 2010, rioting in the wake of a contested election and fierce interethnic clashes led to the evacuation of Chinese traders working in border trading posts. The kidnapping and death of two Chinese engineers in the Gomal Zam Dam project in Pakistan in 2004 led to a cessation of work in the country. Suffice to say, the problems that China may encounter through investing in challenging periphery countries are not new.

What has changed, however, is the scope of China’s investments and the numbers of people and assets involved. This does change the dynamic somewhat, leaving China exposed in a way that it has not had to manage thus far.

While previously, having to worry about a few people in faraway lands was largely something that could be left to local actors, increasingly this is not the case. Not only are there far more people and assets to worry about, they are vocal and angry when they get in trouble. Voices get to Beijing and stoke fires of public anger suggesting China is unable to protect its citizens, notwithstanding the massive investments it has made in its security forces.

Additionally, Chinese citizens are increasingly obvious targets. Gone are the days when Chinese were overlooked as poor beggars eking out an existence. In China’s neighbourhood, they are increasingly the big investors (whether this is true or not) and this has consequences for their image overseas.

They are now wealthy and attractive targets, both in terms of their economic value, but also in that they are increasingly the representatives of the big power that is supporting a government that may be unpopular for various reasons. All of this makes them targets for angry locals keen to protest against the state, or criminal and terrorist elements who are looking for opportunities.

There is no doubt that China is going to encounter bumps as it paves, mines and develops the belt and road projects. But these problems are not new, in much the same way as the investments themselves are building on deep conceptual and financial foundations that have come before them. The belt and road is not so much a coming concept as a current reality.

Understanding the specific nature of each branch is going to be the important determinant that people should be focusing on to understand how and whether the belt and road is worth engaging with.

It is also how China is going to comprehend how it is going to mitigate the risks that it is already managing better.

Raffaello Pantucci is director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London

China’s Place in Central Asia

Posted: June 23, 2016 in Eurasianet
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A new piece for an excellent source on all things on Eurasia, appropriately enough called Eurasianet. It is part of a series they have been running this week looking at China in the region, and have run a number of other excellent pieces after this. More on this topic as ever soon, and be sure to check out China in Central Asia for the bigger projects I continue to do on China’s push into Eurasia.

China’s Place in Central Asia

Xi Nazarbayev

First of a Five-Part Series

EurasiaNet is running a series this week looking at the state of relations between China and the five nations of former Soviet Central Asia. China expert Raffaello Pantucci opens the series with a survey of China’s role in the region. 

China’s rise in Central Asia marks one of the most consequential changes in regional geopolitics since the turn of the century.

China announced that it intended to be a major player in Central Asia back in September 2013, when Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech in Astana that inaugurated the “Belt and Road” vision — the most dominant expression of Chinese foreign policy from his administration. Yet this declaration notwithstanding, it remains unclear whether Beijing has a coherent vision for Central Asia. Instead, Beijing continues to grow into a role of regional prominence without a clear plan to manage the ramifications of its growing role.

The narrative of spreading Chinese influence throughout the region is not new. Indicators of China’s influence are plentiful. Markets are full of Chinese products, infrastructure is heavily built by Chinese firms with Chinese loans, leadership visits — either Chinese to the region or regional to China — are followed by announcements of massive deals being signed, and increasingly China is playing a more prominent role in regional security questions. Even so, China remains a hesitant regional actor, and is keen to continue casting itself as subordinate to Russia. Beijing is also eager to avoid becoming embroiled in inevitable regional economic and political complications.

Most recently, these complications have manifested themselves as protests in Kazakhstan, where locals have expressed anger at the government’s decision to change legislation governing foreigners’ ability to rent land for lengthy periods of time. Public anger is rooted mostly in concerns that Chinese firms will exploit this legislation to slowly lease ever larger tracts of Kazakhstani land. Such problems have arisen in the past. In 2009, for example, when President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced a leasing arrangement, Chinese and Tajik censors blocked references in the media to a similar deal in Tajikistan in 2011.

In other contexts, China finds itself embroiled in corruption scandals. The recently deposed prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, Temir Sariyev, departed under a cloud of bribery accusations connected mostly to a road-building contract won by Chinese firm Longhai. Similar suspicions are often voiced in other countries, though details tend to be elusive. And finally, China continues to be concerned about security threats connected to the region. Lower level criminality affects Chinese entrepreneurs in the region who are sometimes seen as a soft touch by local criminals, while the government continues to express concern about terrorist groups and networks that are believed to be active in the region.

On more strategic level, a major challenge for Chinese officials is related to perception. There is a persistent sense among experts and officials in Central Asia that China’s interests and investment in the region mask some sort of hidden agenda. Such wariness is often exacerbated by a belief that China is only interested in the region’s natural resources, or sees Central Asia merely as a conduit to more lucrative markets elsewhere.

Aware of the perception issue, China has sought to address it. During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Kyrgyzstan in May, he spoke to his counterpart Erlan Abdyldayev about the possibility of relocating Chinese factories to the country. In Uzbekistan, telecoms companies Huawei and ZTE have already realized the importance of this and established assembly plants there, while the Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group (XCMG) has sought to piggyback on the external construction push under the Belt and Road by building a factory in the country. In Kazakhstan, meanwhile, the government continues to hold out hope that the Special Economic Zones being developed at the Khorgos border crossing and elsewhere will turn into manufacturing hubs rather than just transit points for Chinese goods.

On the extractives front, China continues to be a major importer, though as Turkmenistan has discovered in the past year, China’s appetite for gas has its limits. While all the talk publicly has been about the pending realization of the trans-Afghan TAPI pipeline, signals are increasingly visible of further strings to the China-Central Asia pipeline being put on ice for the time being. And from the regional perspective, Central Asian capitals are growing as concerned about becoming reliant on the China market as they are about the steep drop in Russia’s economy.

The biggest driver of Chinese thinking towards Central Asia remains the Belt and Road. Highlighting the degree to which this is the lens through which Beijing views the region, Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his recent visit to Bishkek spoke of how China wanted to view the “SCO as a platform to speed up the docking of the Silk Road Economic Belt with the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union.” The local branch of the Belt and Road, the Silk Road Economic Belt, is an all-encompassing concept that at its heart is about improved connectivity, regional development and investment. It increasingly seems as though it is going to become the overarching umbrella through which China will engage with the region.

This is a mixed blessing for the region. Given the centrality of the Belt and Road and Silk Road Economic Belt to Xi Jinping personally, it is clear that Central Asia will continue to benefit from this attention going forward. But there remains a question about how the region will be able to capture some local benefit beyond simply transit fees. It is clear that China feels like it has a voice that it wants to express sometimes — most recently in the form of an angry outburst from the Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan about the difficulty his co-nationals have had in obtaining visas — but it remains uncertain what Beijing’s long-term vision for the region is.

The question for the Central Asian capitals is the degree to which they can shape China’s approach in a way that maximizes the benefits that they seek. Central Asian leaders also want China to take a greater degree of responsibility for some regional security questions. As the first stop on the ideologically central Silk Road Economic Belt, Central Asia will be a consistent point in Chinese foreign policy in the coming years. What the long-term ramifications of this are, however, remains to be seen.

Editor’s note: Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute and the co-editor of China in Central Asia