China’s Struggle for Influence in Central Asia

China [music] is one of the 21st century's most consequential nations. It has never been more important to understand how the country [music] is governed and what its leaders and its people actually want and believe. Welcome to Pecking, [music] the podcast that unpacks China's evolving political system and the trajectory of China's domestic and foreign policy. I'm your host Henri Leven, senior fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at [music] CSIS. This is Pecology. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SEO. In 2001, China joined with Russia and three Central Asian republics to launch the SEO with an eye towards addressing border security challenges in the region and fostering an Liberal alternative to the US-led international order. As we look ahead to Xiinping's likely travel to Kyrgyzstan for this year's annual SEO summit, it is clear that quite a lot has changed for the SEO itself and for China's role in Central Asia over the past 25 years. China is increasingly displacing Russia's economic influence and even its political influence across Central Asia and Beijing has positioned an enlarged SEO as a fundamental component of the new world order it is working hard to build. Last year, President Xi even announced his new global governance initiative at a meeting of SEO leaders in Tangjen. So, this seemed like a good time to dig into what China is up to in Central Asia and what we should expect from the 2026 SEO summit. For that, I am very pleased to be joined today by Bradley Jordan, co-author of the new book, Backlash: China's Struggle for Influence in Central Asia. Bradley, thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Thanks for having me. So, how did you first get interested in China and its regional ambitions in Central Asia? >> Yeah, I guess my interest in China's interest in Central Asia really started as a correspondent in Moscow. I've been working for a number of years in Russia in 2016. I'd been looking at the growing alignment between Russia and China and what it meant for regions like Central Asia. And eventually in 2019, I went to China to Beijing to study. And that's when I really grew more interested in China's ambitions in Central Asia. And of course with the weaguer crisis taking place in Shing Jang, how that issue was spilling over into neighboring states and how they were balancing the relations between the West and between China. I thought that that made for quite fascinating case study of regional diplomacy and great power competition that was emergent at the time. And so yeah, I've really just been growing my interest in Central Asia over the years and looking at China's broader ambitions and where the region fits within broader Eurasian geopolitics. >> Well, let's start the beginning of that story. How would you describe the long history of China's relations with Central Asia? What are the key moments that end up setting the stage for China's contemporary strategy towards the region? And then how has the Chinese government of today used and adapted that history for its own purposes? >> Yeah, I mean that's a very fascinating question. I mean if we go back to Central Asia's early engagements with China, you know, we're spanning millennia where Central Asia was this restive frontier that China viewed as as a threat, something to be controlled and you know built military garrisons along the frontier region. So these were kind of long historical arc where China has viewed the region as a threat traditionally historically until more recent years. I mean of course China's contemporary relations are marked with the fall of the Soviet Union the emergence of the five literal posts Soviet republics from now central Asia initially in the 1990s a lot of unresolved tensions. Of course, China and the Soviet Union had very tense relations with the Sinos Soviet split. There were a lot of disagreements over borders. There was heavy militarization of the border. So, in the 1990s, there was an opportunity to reset relations with the region, demarcate those borders, reduce some of the tensions, and of course, there was also internal reasons was about security largely focused on Shinjang. Of course, Shing Jang is a Turk populated region. Western China has long historical roots with Central Asia. The two regions historically, they were only really bifurcated in recent history with the rise of the cold war and modern creation of borders. So, historically there was a lot of connectivity. And in the '90s, this became quite troubling for China, which worried about the the spectre of separatism or that the emergence of Turic states on the border with China would lead to demands for political autonomy in Shing Jang. And so that's really what colored early relations with China and China formed with the Central Asian governments, the Shanghai 5, which was about resolving these issues, clamping down on any signs of weaguer related activism emerging in Central Asia as well as reaching shared norms around security, counterterrorism, counter separatism. And this Shanghai 5 is what incubated essentially the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which has been the main multilateral framework that China has been engaging the region ever since. [clears throat] >> And it seems like as always Beijing is very interested in utilizing the parts of that history that are helpful, maybe less so the parts that aren't to its current vision of what China is, what China should be in the region. So, for example, maybe you don't hear quite so much about kind of Shinjang's historical fluidity in terms of how it fits into China, but also the broader Central Asian region. But you hear a lot about the Silk Road and the traditions of trade and with China really emphasizing a narrative of peaceful engagement as the longtime undercurrent of China's perspective towards this part of the world. So, how do you see Beijing engaging with these historical narratives in the context of its relations in Central Asia today? And do the Central Asian countries buy it? >> The Silk Road narrative's definitely been very interesting and it's been a core part of China's engagement. It's quite a convenient narrative, of course, because first of all, it taps into this deep history. I mean, as noted, there have been millennia of engagement between Chinese civilization and that of Central Asia. So, it's a deep reservoir to tap into. There's a lot of room for soft power diplomacy, looking at early cooperation, trade arrangements. There's been a lot of investments from the Chinese side and what we call archaeological diplomacy, setting up joint archaeological digs, excursions, and really putting forward [clears throat] that common heritage that they share. So that's a very important centerpiece of China's rhetoric around its engagement with the region and of course taps into modern interests as well. I mean the construction of a land corridor, strategic depth in the Eurasian landmass connectivity, trade, these are all things that benefit China's current agenda. And so playing up their historic role is it's a no-brainer. It's a very simple framework that the world can understand. Certainly the Chinese perspective and why the central Asia is so important. From the central Asian perspective, the belton roads overlap with silk road narrative is very helpful. I think that they understand that this is a narrative that benefits their own interests. They of course want to position themselves as this important network in the heart of Eurasia, a bridge of connectivity. I think that when China began playing up the silk road history, this was beneficial. Well, I would say Usbekiststan was actually one of the first to really start leveraging it in [clears throat] the early '90s. And so it really converged with Central Asia's own image, how it views itself in the world and its main strategic value for global actors, which is of course its geographic location of course balancing between Europe, Asia, the Middle East and important energy markets and corridors as well. So I think China has very selectively tapped into Silk Road history. Of course, there's a lot more complications looking at military history. There's a history there's a another kind of dimension to this Silk Road history of colonialism, expansionism on the part of China as well. There have been a lot of historical tensions, but of course those are often downplayed of in favor of the more sanitized narrative really of mutual cooperation. And you you have a good historical anecdote in the book of how the imperial China only stopped expanding its own borders further into central Asia when they lost a war against an Arab force hundreds of years ago which is a good reminder of how kind of historically contingent some of these dynamics in fact are. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. the battle of Talas really don't get central Asian started on talking about because I'm sure they we can go on in depth but yeah it was a very interesting historical analogy cuz of course that has set the borders with China and Central Asia for millennia and that's as we said with although the modern demarcation of the border between what became Russian Central Asia and what became Chinese central Asia are modern they do have the historical precedent of that famous battle in 75 51 AD and how it set the geopolitical borders for hundreds of years. >> So going deeper on the contemporary moment in the book, I hope I'm not summarizing too unfairly. I think you've identified five primary interests that you believe Beijing has identified for itself in Central Asia and those are firstly related to Shing Jang and border security creating a buffer, secondly regional stability, third energy resilience for transit routes and then lastly building an alternative international order and and you've identified interesting ways in which Beijing is pursuing these objectives in mutually complimentary ways across the five republics of Central Asia. So I'm hoping you could take us a little deeper in those areas and maybe we can start with Shinjang. And so how does China's policy or domestic policy kind of interface with its regional strategy in Central Asia? Yeah, it's a great question and China has really veered in extremes in its domestic policy in Shing Jang and how it views Central Asia as part of that policy agenda. In the 80s when there was a period of liberalization in China, there was more tolerance for expressions of local identity in Shing Jang. Central Asia was viewed as a place where trade could occur. Mutual engagement could lead to regional development. This could harmonize relations. But then in the 1990s, some unrest triggered a real securitization of China's approach to Shing Jang. China began to focus more on its own territorial integrity, threats of separatism, and then it started to view Central Asia as a potential threat. And early documents in the mid '90s really talked up the potential for Central Asia to become a hub of separatist activism and how this could potentially spill over and create unrest in Shing Jang. So its relations with Central Asia in the '90s became very securitized and that resulted in the core policy of the three evils of separatism, extremism and terrorism. These were a series of agreements with the central Asian governments on how they would define these threats and how they would cooperate on clamping down on them. So that was really a core trench of early policy. And then over the last couple of decades there have been periods of opening and closing becoming most extreme in the period after 2018 where we see the rise of the re-education centers and the total clampdown on weaguer cultural expression that has led to a period of closed off where again there was threats there was fears of weaguer and the Chinese biopolitics call it contamination of ideologies ies of extremism or separatism coming across the borders. The relations became deeply securitized again in an unprecedented manner. Now in the last couple of years, we've entered a new stage where domestic repression remains the centerpiece of China's policy in Shing Jang which has just been enshrined now in a new series of laws which just further push toward assimilationist policy agenda. But on the other side, Central Asia is now being viewed once more as a hub for stabilizing the region, creating far more trade and connectivity will pacify any regional resistance. And so trade with Central Asia has been booming and there are plans to liberalize the border regime, even talks with Central Asian governments about easier digitization, biometric identities at the borders. So there's been a lot more talk about trade and connectivity again because this is seen as part of China's security agenda of pacifying the region through development policy. And I mean the the dynamics in Shing Jang are interesting for Central Asia in part because you know if you look at who was detained in the camps in Shinjang I mean it's mostly weaguers but there's also a good number of ethnic Khazaks ethnic Kygis and I think even nationals of Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan potentially the others as well which I imagine creates a very complex dynamic because these aren't governments who are looking to pick a fight with China but they must feel they have some obligation kind of at the very least consular work for these people. So how does that play out? >> Yeah, the central Asian governments have had to walk a very difficult diplomatic tightroppe really. You've had the crisis in Shing Jang as you know. It's very important to point out that a large number of ethnic Kazaks, Kiris and other minorities are also in in some of those re-education centers. And this triggered a lot of protests in Central Asia which became politically controversial where you have nationalist governments who look to be cooperating with a country that's repressing their fellow co-s. And so that created a tension, a lot of pressure on governments. It was a very uncomfortable issue. And they've had decadesl long policy of multivurism where they want to balance relations between as many different actors as possible without any controversies. And so this growing Cuban rights crisis became kind of their worst fear in a way of the west at the time was putting a lot of pressure on. There was a lot of discussion especially with Pompeo's visit to pick aside or at least call out China for its repression in Shing Jang and that's a position that the Central Asian governments really want to avoid being in at all costs. So what they did with China was rather than calling it out publicly there was a policy of working with China through diplomatic back channels for releases of a number of Kazaks who were resettled in Kazakhstan. And so that was the quiet diplomacy that took place and of course with protests themselves the activities any protest against China and Central Asia is an extremely tense issue. I mean, we've mapped out a lot of protests have been taking place over the past decade. And we see that statistically speaking, responses tend to be most severe for protests relate to China, even more so, interestingly, than protests that are critical of the governments themselves. Cuz this is just how important relations with China have become in Central Asia. That's really interesting to see these authoritarian governments in Central Asia prioritize I guess what China would call its political dignity over their own. >> Yeah, exactly. >> So, okay, you mentioned of course that China is investing very significantly in the economic relationship with these countries in terms of fostering regional stability. I mean that economic piece is a big part of the equation but there's also a securitized dimension of how China tries to promote regional stability and you talk in the book about this secretive base that China has built in a remote corner of I think Tajikistan which is probably operated by the people's armed police which are themselves part of the PLA the people's liberation army so can Can you tell us about that base and why it's there? >> Yeah, the base has been an interesting development as it's been China's first real foray into security governance in the region. Traditionally speaking, there was always a division or an informal division where Russia had most of the security and military arrangements. China was more focused on economic investment. But after 2014, I argue that China's become much more of a prominent security player. And in 2016, they created this outpost which monitors the small territory called the Wakan corridor, which is China's small land border with Afghanistan and also borders with Pakistan and Tajjikhstan. So it's this very remote part of the world. The Chinese began to fear could be a conduit for fighters, weer fighters. A large number of them were in the Syrian conflict. There was a concern that many would flee to Afghanistan, set up a base of operations there and infiltrate Shing Jang or send propaganda, recruitment materials, that sort of thing across this this border. And so China set up this security arrangement with Tajjikstan, Pakistan, Afghanistan to monitor the Wakan corridor, run small patrols there. And so this outpost which is in Tajjikhstan's Badakchan province is the outcome of that. So it's part of this broader concern that China's having. First it began, I would say with this fixation on the Uger issue or this concern with fighters. I think it's beginning to broaden as China recognizes that the border with Tajjikiststan, Afghanistan is very restive. It's not even fully under Taliban control. There have been a lot of various militant groups basing there over the years and in recent years we've seen a lot of attacks probably connected to drug smuggling which is another issue on that order where there've been drone attacks on Chinese work camps because China has a lot of mines in Tajjikstan. So there's a lot of resource extraction taking place and they've become targets really for militant groups and for part of these kind of battles that take place between drug traders for control of these roots. Often times Chinese infrastructure and Chinese workers have been attacked. So China's really taken a a big interest in recent years on on this base and on this border in particular. And so it's started to expand its security footprint as well. And turning to some of the other interests you've identified for China and Central Asia, we've energy, transit routes, you know, more of a commercial or maybe economic security emphasis. [clears throat] What does that look like? And especially in a context where I think we often see globally China successfully parlay economic influence into political influence. How does that look in Central Asia? It's more complicated picture on the ground. It's kind of part of the argument that we tried to make in our book with backlash. We're looking at specifically actors on the ground who are opposed to China's growing interests in the region and who have put limits on China's ability to act unilaterally. So we kind of look at that important constraint that public perception. This is a very authoritarian part of the world. A lot of people wonder why does the public really matter? If there's no expressions of democracy, public opinion, the governments can agree with China and rush through projects. Why does public opinion matter so much? And what we've really tried to do with this book is show that even in a very closed environment like Central Asia, of course, public opinion and engagement does matter. And we've seen this through localized protests, areas where Chinese projects have had very low environmental standards, so they've damaged local water supplies, grazing land for livestock. We've seen protests and sometimes this has resulted in some reforms or change or even reverse projects entirely. So there have been limits to China's power through some of this mobilization. And it also puts a lot of pressure and we talked about the Shing Jang issue, how that really reduced the government's room for maneuver when it came to dealing with China because they do have to balance what the public wants or what expectations are to some degree. And I think figuring out that that line has been increasingly difficult as China's investments and presence have gone. Now on the other hand, China has of course continued to grow economically and it's reaching kind of record investments in the region and I think that trend will continue. There's a lot of mutual agreements between China and between Central Asia. Of course, we're seeing now in recent years, China's now increasingly investing in agriculture, modernization of agricultural tech, water irrigation is a big one. Central Asia is one of the most water scarce regions in the world and so a lot of Chinese technology is helping with more efficient use of water and scarce water resources which is beneficial to the region and also benefits China's development policy where China really wants to see more agricultural imports from central Asia in exchange for purchasing of Chinese technology whether that's growing e-commerce markets electric vehicles some of which are now actually being manufactured in the region as well. China's moving Central Asia up the value chain in some ways by building out some of this infrastructure cuz the cost of labor in Central Asia much cheaper. It can help with its export markets. So, China's started to view Central Asia as far more than just a raw commodities hub. It's actually just a logistics corridor. It now has a more sophisticated approach to the region. And I I thought it was interesting that you do in the book talk about what you call debt diplomacy from China towards Central Asia, which I think is an interesting frame. My experience is that many countries that have benefited from or experienced Chinese investment see the debt that they take on in the context of those projects not so much as kind of a intentional power play from China, but rather the only way that they're going to get the infrastructure investment they need and want. And if there's too much debt, well, does that responsibility lie preponderantly with the local elites kind of signing the contracts or to what degree is Beijing really thinking about debt as part of its intentional strategy? So, how does the question of debt fit into China's economic story? >> Yeah, I think the debt diplomacy narrative has been interesting and caught a lot of attention in Washington DC. I mean I'm more skeptical of it overall as being some sort of intention on the part of China. I think you really have multiple things at play. Of course you have especially with the belt and road there's just such a wide range of actors involved. The China's policy is constantly evolving whether it's the business side the foreign policy dimensions diplomacy local actors themselves are often pulling China more into their respective regions. We shouldn't overstate the degree of coordination that goes into Barri that goes into the Belton Road initiative when this is kind of really a bunch of public and private Chinese actors following the general direction set out by she but of course there's a lot of chaos in the mix. >> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no it's difficult to say there's any coordination because of just there are so many actors involved devising this project and especially in frontier regions like Tajjikhstan for example they're facing a lot of the same information gaps that we face when dealing with these very non-transparent countries and they have their own interests in pulling in investments >> so [clears throat] there's definitely a lot of responsibility as well on the parts of local governments I think Tajjukstan in particular has really been actively pulling in debts despite I think it's now one of the most debt burdened countries in the world. It's now over 50% of its GDP is debt owed to China. So it's put itself in a very risky position. Kyrgystan similarly indebted to China. The other countries of the region have been a lot more sophisticated. They have much larger diversified economies. Kazakhstan, Usbekiststan in particular have managed to keep their debts to a minimum so far. Although Usbekiststan is growing similarly with Turk Manistan, but definitely in the case of Tajjikstan, which lacks resources, it's really it's a small state that often plays up its the potential for in instability. It's on China's border. It's on the Afghan border. And if its regime folds, that could create regional uncertainty and destabilization. That's often actually its bargaining chip is more pulling in actors for the sake of propping up its stability. And I think that's been its diplomacy for decades. And it's been very successful when dealing with the EU, with Russia, with China, and with the US as well in pulling in investments and security infrastructure. And the last priority you've identified from Beijing in Central Asia is building an alternative international order. What does that look like? >> Well, I think what China promotes in Central Asia is really its broad vision of this multi-olar order. They'll refer for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. this framework they call the Shanghai spirit which of course puts forward really sovereignty and non-inference as being the core trenches of this vision. It's the idea that the west pulls for conditionality. The promotion of democratic liberal democratic norms. China's promoting an alternative where trade investment is all decoupled from political structures. And this falls into modern areas as well with digital sovereignty in particular or where there's a total protection of the information space. I would expect with the upcoming Shanghai cooperation summit to talk quite a lot about cyber security for this reason that it's important to note that in Central Asia cyber security is not just referring to hackers attacks on infrastructure. When we think about cyber security, it's much broader sense of securitization of information space control of the information environment from perceived even things like being critical of China that disrupts national stability in some way or it could be interpreted as such. That could be a security issue in the eyes of Central Asian governments and that's part of what Shanghai Cooperation Organization is trying to push at the moment is a lot more collaboration on that front. So these are really the pillars of China's new order as it were. But in Central Asia, you know, I would be very careful in pointing out that they have a very selective reading of China's vision for this order. Central Asia, as I've noted, I think it's real priority is multi vectorism, which is being able to balance relations between China and the West. I think Central Asian governments are quite wary over growing polarization between the US and China because it could put them in far more positions where they're forced to take sides. That's not something that they want to do at this point in time. China's vision of a new order aligns with that multipolarity. They can have some diplomatic buyin. Of course, Central Asian states can talk about a multi-polar order that seems kind of non-threatening, but that's not necessarily backing a Chinese-led order. They can pick and choose at will how they want to engage the US. They can bring the US in for investments, for example, in critical minerals. They can position that simply as them bringing in more competition, more outside investors and that can still be seen at this point in time is non-threatening to China because it's part of their multipolarity and it's also part of what China is saying with non-inference in politics. The real question will be how long does that hold and at what point does China determine that there is a degree for interference in politics? For example, if Central Asia really started to move the value chain for critical minerals away from China or invested a lot more in processing, refining of materials, would that be a red line for China? We'll that'll be something to really keep an eye on in coming years. >> So there are some interesting dynamics around how USChina competition plays out in Central Asia. But this is also an interesting region for the China Russia relationship which has grown very close over the past few years and especially since Russia's war in Ukraine kind of increased dramatically. Russia's dependence on China. And it seems like Central Asia nonetheless might remain a point of friction in the relationship between Russia and China, even as she and Putin seem to have sent pretty definitive signals that the two sides should not be allowing points of friction to get in the way of the partnership. That doesn't change the fact that their interests do not perfectly align in this part of the world. So how does Central Asia fit into the China Russia partnership? >> I think this has been an interesting dynamic that has evolved quite a lot over the past decades. Of course, emerging from Soviet Union, Russia had a kind of a neoimperialist agenda where it saw the region as its sphere of influence and it's long had kind of a monopoly on security, regime protection in the region. But in recent years, that's been disrupted quite considerably. As I've noted, China has already been moving in on security. China's also broadened its engagement with the region. It used to work primarily through the SEO, a multilateral framework that includes Russia. In recent years, it's been using its China plus Central Asian 5, and it's also been using its bilateral engagements a lot more and taking a more independent course in policy in Central Asia. I think that produces some friction with Russia which of course still has these colonial ambitions or hangover as it were from its historical relationship with the region but I think it's learned to adapt to China's growing influence and also in recent years I mean one thing that's interesting is since the conflict with Ukraine I think we've seen a lot more engagement with China and Central Asia at the same time and also it's removed some of the roadblocks and sticking points between China and Russia and Central Asia. For example, China has long from the SEO promoted this idea of having a common banking infrastructure, financial infrastructure as part of the SEO. Russia's opposed at seeing it as just consolidating China's dominance in the region and so it's opposed any attempts to create this kind of infrastructure. But now with the conflicts in Iran and with Ukraine, Russia, Iran, other actors that are in the SEO framework have really seen the potential for this kind of banking infrastructure in terms of avoiding sanctions, for example. And so some of the political roadblocks to common financial infrastructure have been removed in recent years, although a lot of tensions remain. But I think it's one of these areas that's interesting where we're seeing Russia almost seeding grounds in China's influence because it can benefit its own broader agenda even if it means surrendering the last vestigages of its influence in Central Asia over the long run. That is >> that's interesting because in looking at the outcomes from the SEO summit last year where Russia finally stopped blocking the development of an SEO development bank after what like a decade of opposing it because they wanted that financing to run through channels they controlled. I had initially looked at that more as just like a Russian concession. Maybe a sense that they felt they just couldn't not give Beijing what they wanted as Russian dependence on China increased. But I appreciate your point that it may actually be more so that Russia's interests are coming to align more cleanly with China's. It's not just that they're giving China something, but rather what China wanted anyway has come to benefit Russia as it kind of weighs the relative advantages of influence verse in this case sanctions evasion. And it sounds like you're saying if they think Chinese leadership in Central Asia can deliver new opportunities for sanctions invasion for Russia then great and that's a fair cost their own influence is a fair cost to pay. I think that is the case and I think that my argument is that their agendas more broadly are fairly aligned in Central Asia in terms of norms promotion being very similar connectivity and infrastructure regime security they can agree on counterterrorism extremism of course blocking out any unrest spilling over from Afghanistan pushing out western actors from the region I think broadly they're very aligned and I think that Russia While it will of course try to seek to keep its influence for as long as possible, I think it recognizes that China's on the ascent and it has to work and benefit from that however it can. >> So the first word in the title of your book is backlash. So I feel like we should spend just a minute on that. Seems to suggest that maybe not everything China is doing in Central Asia is wellreceived. You mentioned kind of the protests that periodically erupt related to conditions in Shinjang and other elements of Chinese policy. But at the same time, you have to imagine that the scale of economic opportunity that China is able to deliver for this part of the world is seen as a a very valuable and maybe irreplaceable opportunity. So putting the governments themselves aside to the degree that we can know how China's strategy and engagement is received in Central Asia like how is China experienced by the people of this region? Yeah, it's a funny it's a point I make in that we make in the book is that although we call it backlash and we're focused on the actors who are experiencing China most negatively, the broader sense across the region is one of ambivalence. A lot of people don't engage China much in their day-to-day life or they don't have much contact with China in terms of culture or just any of the soft power engagement that we would expect especially of an actor of its scale and its presence in the region. I think what's remarkable is just how much of a vacuum there is around its own narrative because it doesn't have that soft engagement at the grassroots level. Although that's changing now, especially as Central Asia's moved to consumers of things like Chinese vehicles, for example, China's now seen as a place producing high-end quality products such as, you know, its cars and its computers and telecommunications software and so on. I think that what we're seeing now is people are actually engaging with China for the first time. They're not just seeing it as cheap low-end goods that are coming across the border and pushing down prices. Now it's actually seen as providing value to their day-to-day life. And I think there will be a lot of changes in perceptions of China as a result. And as you mentioned, it brings a lot of opportunities, training. It still falls largely behind Russia. Most Central Asians are still the migrant workers at least are going to to Russia to work. Most are still studying in Russia, but that is slowly changing. But China's still much slower than you would expect considering its ambitions in the region. But I think a lot of people are reaping those benefits of engagement with China. I think a lot of people are do have a positive opinion of its view in the country. But as I mentioned, there is also a lot of skepticism. And there's a lot of fear about the scale of China about just becoming burdened with the trade imbalances for example remain extremely high and there's a worry in Central Asia that they're merely going to be exporting commodities and flooded with Chinese goods and it pushes out local industry local entrepreneurship and that's a concern and it's one that China is aware of and it's actively trying to change that narrative. It's doing a lot more skills development, training for engineers, apprenticeships, internships. They're kind of exploding in the region right now. So, I think that there are efforts to win over broad segments of the population. >> Turning to the SEO summit that's coming up in just a few days, we're expecting Xiinping to probably travel to Kyrgyzstan for the annual summit. What do you see as China's top priorities for this year's SEO summit? Should we expect any big deliverables and especially in she's engagement with the Central Asian leaders who will attend, but also for the organization as a whole? >> Yeah, this summit is of course an important milestone for the SEO, its 25th anniversary. There will be of course a lot of rhetoric about that. China loves anniversaries. >> He loves anniversaries. I'm sure there will be a lot of big statements about the values of the organization. Probably the Shanghai 5 played out multi-polarity. I think the big priorities for China and I think for the region as well is deepening security cooperation. I mean there have been a lot of talks of setting up security centers, coordinating on counterterrorism, counter narcotics and this kind of the promotion of the cyber sovereignty, the protection of digital space. I think that's something that's been very strongly promoted. Of course, there will be talks about the development bank. I'd be skeptical if they have agreements yet on capitalization and governance or any major announcement to be made but there may be an incremental move toward agreement. [gasps] Of course, infrastructure is going to be a core. I mean there will be a lot of talk about the Kergisbakistan China railway. The importance I think of Chinese tech. I think there's a lot more what we've been seeing in recent this year actually is just a lot more engagement from China in local agriculture. China even released a satellite with Usuzbekistan the other month which is about kind of monitoring agriculture and improving its efficiency. There's a lot more talk about water management and resource management in general. So I think we'll see a lot more deepening of China's digital economy in the region, more e-commerce, streamlining as we've mentioned of visa processes in the region, growing investments in transport. There've been talks of opening up new routes between China and Central Asia. I think we can expect more of that and more crossber digital infrastructure overall. And we've seen SEO really expand significantly over the past year or so with the addition of a number of dialogue partners from Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. I wonder how you think that will affect kind of SEO's relevance for better and for worse that this organization that started very heavily anchored in Central Asia is now becoming almost a convening for all of the countries China would consider to constitute its periphery. And how how does that evolution of SEO affect its its role? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I mean, a lot of analysts of the region have talked about how the expansion may have just been driven by Russian interests in the early days, especially inclusion of India and Pakistan as a way to dilute China's influence in the S the SEO. So the expansion was actually seen originally as part of a way of weakening China's influence over the SEO and China does seem to have downgraded it to some extent because as I mentioned they've used a lot more of their own separate multilateral frameworks like the China plus C5 grouping for example or leaning far more into bilateral meetings than traditional SEO. So there was a sense that the SEO was weakening as an implement but I think that in recent years it's really grown as a platform and its symbolic value. I think it's gained a lot more traction in recent years is now rhetorically at least as a challenge to the west or a vision of a Chinese values and of a Chinese-led order. So I think the SEO is at a new height in terms of its symbolic and political value coordinating such a vast range of actors but it's implementing value for the time being has been watered down because you're trying to coordinate especially looking at the India Pakistan when you have an organization built on unanimity it's very hard to get either of those two actors to agree >> and of course India doesn't want to give China anything as well even beyond >> exactly so factoring in India as a counterbalance to China's interests as well that of course makes it very hard to implement but I think that the symbolic value as we said of having it as a platform where new a new vision for global governance can be put forward or new norms can be projected of a Chinaentric order I think it has immense value in that regard >> yeah and you can see maybe how if China is investing in SEO as a norm setting platform maybe at the expense of its implementation capability then maybe those gaps are filled by the expanding diplomatic architecture in the region. You don't just have SEO to your point. You have greater Chinese investment at a senior level in the China plus 5 format with the Central Asian republics, more bilateral engagement. We may be seeing a certain efficiency in division of labor across an expanded diplomatic architecture that China is building. >> Exactly. I think this layered approach of just operating at different functional layers has just created a far more a compounding effect really for China's influence overall. And so I think that's likely the approach that they'll continue to take. I mean even when we're looking at finance there a lot of discussion about banking infrastructure within the SEO but in some ways that's just adding to what already exists. China already has mechanisms for financing infrastructure in the region and it will the Asian infrastructure investment bank for example. I think that this layered approach will be howi China continues to operate in the region and I think it's it has a lot more strategic flexibility as well which I think is always something that China values. >> Great. Well, we'll have to wrap there. Bradley, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. >> To learn more about China's strategy in Central Asia, what's working and what is working less well, I hope our listeners will pick up a copy of the new book, Backlash: China's Struggle for Influence in Central Asia, which is co-authored by Bradley Jordan and Edward Lemon. And as always, we would love to hear what you thought of today's conversation and what issues you would like Pinology to unpack in future episodes. You can send your ideas to peckingology@csis.org. And if you haven't already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. We will be back in your feed very soon. 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