Pilot zone for a community with a shared future

China's policies for Russia, Central Asia and South Asia should be integrated into a unified Eurasia cooperation strategy

Over the past three decades, the depth, content and scale of bilateral cooperation have been on the rise, with growing mutual trust and amity. This shows that China's Central Asia policy has been effective.

China has always attached great importance to its relations with Central Asian countries. By making its relations with Central Asia a priority of its foreign policy, China has continuously upgraded its relations with Central Asian countries, sought to expand the common ground with them, narrow the differences between them and seize the opportunities to continuously explore pragmatic cooperation.

For instance, the Shanghai Five, Shanghai Spirit, Silk Road Economic Belt and its implementation mechanisms such as economic corridors, integration of development strategies and capacity cooperation, and the China-Europe freight train service were first implemented by China and its Central Asian partners and later expanded to China's cooperation with other countries.

If China's interests in Central Asia used to lie primarily in security of its western region and economic cooperation, Central Asia has now become a pilot zone for China's newest diplomatic theories and practices.

As a result, China's Central Asia policy should focus on the following areas:

To start with, China should combine its inland development strategies with its cooperation with Central Asian countries to expand the development space for its inland area. Instead of only relying on the coastal region, China should explore resources in its inland region to achieve sustained growth. By collaborating with the Eurasian region on land, China can integrate domestic and foreign resources, make the inland region a new engine for its economic growth and turn the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region into a hub for cooperation.

The China-Europe freight train service has striven to lower logistics costs in the inland region to the same level of that in the coastal region. If capacity cooperation with the Central Asian countries can be strengthened, industrial development could bring more prosperity to the region. If the infrastructure system in Xinjiang and neighboring areas is improved, it could become a pivot for connecting Russia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and South Asian countries and become the transportation, energy pipeline network, logistics, trade, financial and cultural center of the Eurasian hinterland. It will be more convenient and cost-effective for Russia and Central Asian countries to strengthen economic and trade ties with South Asian countries via Xinjiang and for Chinese inland producers to sell their products to West Asia and Caucasia via Central Asia.

In addition, Central Asian countries should be included in the overall cooperative strategy of Eurasia. With India and Pakistan becoming new members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, new opportunities have emerged concerning cooperation between Central and South Asia.

The SCO, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and joint construction mechanisms between China and countries along the Belt and Road should be used to make full play of their comparative advantages and tap the potential of the vast market. China's policies for Russia, Central Asia and South Asia should be integrated into a unified Eurasia cooperation strategy to forge a "Eurasian Central Cooperative Region" - that is, from Russia, Mongolia, Central Asia, and northwest China in the north to South Asia and West Asia in the south; from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean - to increase the region's capability to resist risks by lifting its overall capacity.

Construction of the Belt and Road should be advanced to create a community with a shared future for mankind for neighboring countries. On the basis of previously achieved results, relevant countries should specify details of previously signed inter-government cooperation agreements and implement confirmed cooperation projects. More tangible results should be produced to let people share the fruits of cooperation. In the meantime, reform and opening-up should be intensified in China's western region, with more targeted measures rolled out for Central Asian and Western Asian markets to turn the western region into a pioneer of further reform and opening-up.

In other words, China should implement two-way opening-up by encouraging domestic companies to "go global" and attracting foreign companies to China. As a result, the enormous investment from China and China's vast market will serve as a solid basis for its Central Asia policy.

Finally, more efforts should be made to safeguard the stability of west China. China should enhance its cooperation with Central Asian countries on safeguarding border security, cracking down on terrorism, extremism and transnational organized crimes, purifying cyberspace, advancing judicial assistance and consolidating national defense. And it should join hands with Central Asian countries to accelerate the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The five principles of "the governance of Afghanistan by the Afghan people, the promotion of political reconciliation, accelerating economic reconstruction, exploring development paths and strengthening external support for the country" should be followed. On that basis, the intrinsic development capacity of Afghanistan could be strengthened and relevant countries should join hands to prevent outside terrorist and extremist forces spreading into Central Asia via Afghanistan, especially preventing Central Asia from becoming a springboard for extremist groups such as the Islamic State group that have been forced out of the Middle East.

The author is director of the department for Central Asian studies at the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Global 06/18/2019 page13)